


The Alpha Omega Project

by ashandcas (ashriddle4)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alpha Benny, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anal Plug, Breeding, Cock Warming, Dom/sub Undertones, Dubious Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Gags, Knotting, M/M, Mating, Mpreg, Omega Castiel, Omega Dean, Oral Sex, Public Sex, Rape/Non-con Elements, Restraints, Rimming, Self-Lubrication, Threesome - M/M/M, drugged sexual activity, no dubcon or noncon relating to dean/cas, switch!cas, switch!dean
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-07-23
Packaged: 2018-03-17 10:01:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 31
Words: 46,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3525071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashriddle4/pseuds/ashandcas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a horrible plague left all humans infertile, a team of desperate scientists found hope in the Alpha Omega Project, a secret experimental human breeding program. They had a plan, the genesis of a brand new world, and they would have succeeded too had experiment #4503 never met experiment #3678. A few numbers shouldn’t cause so much trouble. (Dean/Castiel).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There will be dub-con and non-con in this fic. I want to warn for this again because it's not something that comes up in just a few chapters, it's integral to the theme as Dean, Cas and Benny are essentially trapped as part of a breeding program that they consented to in some ways and in other ways not. None of the dub and non-con will be part of Cas and Dean's relationship with each other. The fic deals with the effect of this loss of consent on the mental and physical well-being of those affected to the best of my ability.
> 
> (The part titles are taken from Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species)
> 
> Updates whenever I can. I have a second job now plus a 10 month old baby so fic happens when it happens.

 

“We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities…still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.” – Charles Darwin

 

PART I: Variation Under Domestication

 

 

. . .

 

Cold – hard – pain.

Dean lifts his aching head from the concrete floor. He props himself up with his sore elbow, struggles against stiff muscles until he is sitting, legs stretched out with his back against a wall. He grips his rough jeans. Something tactile in the gaping darkness.

He blinks and blinks. Eventually, the dark gives way to edges, shapes, silhouettes. In the center of the room sits a tall, many angled structure, which he cannot identify yet. Dean crawls onto his knees, places his palms on the floor and searches. His fingers catch on dry and thin grass as he makes his way toward the structure.

When he’s close enough, he reaches for the curved base of the structure. It’s warm, soft and it moves.

“Holy shit!” Dean thrashes back.

Dean catches himself on his hands and stares ahead, blinking until he can see enough, more than expected.

The _thing_ he just touched isn’t a _thing_ at all. It’s human, and as far as Dean can tell, _naked._ The shoulder width suggests a man, but his or her back is turned to Dean. He can’t be entirely certain.

“Hey.” Dean’s voice comes out too quietly through his dry throat. He coughs and attempts to speak again. “Hey.”

Something graceful, nearly elegant, lives in the human’s turn. Thick but short dark hair, angled face, shoulders, hips, knees, and yes, a dick between his legs. Dean looks away, pauses briefly, and then forces the word “naked” from his brain.

“Where are we, man?”

The man moves onto his hands and knees. He crawls over to Dean. Dean goes rigid as the other man presses his nose to Dean’s neck and draws in a moist breath that curls hot on Dean’s skin.

“Whoa, personal space, pal.”

The words don’t faze the other man. His hands slide to dean’s shoulders, move to his neck, slide over Dean’s face, his lips.

“Easy.” Dean shoves him off. The man growls, but then returns to where Dean first found him and lies back down on the floor, curling his knees into his chest as if Dean wasn't there at all.

“The fuck is going on?” Dean snaps.

No reply. No reaction.

“Where are we?”

Dean tries another tactic. He lowers his voice until it’s calm and soothing, the kind of voice his brother Sam would use. “Look, I’m sorry for shoving you. I just – I don’t know where we are, and I’d really appreciate it if you could help me out here.”

The man rolls over and stares up at Dean. His eyes are so damn blue they defy the darkness. Still, he doesn’t answer.

“What the fuck is wrong with you? Answer me!” Dean slaps his palm down so hard on the floor that it stings.

The man jolts back as if he’s been struck, as if someone has shouted and struck him before. He rolls onto his back, stomach up, knees pulled in, trembling. Dean’s starting to shake too; every breath is a damn battle.

Dean scurries toward the wall. He doesn’t understand this place or the man trapped with him. Distance between them is the best and safest thing.

When Dean leans against the wall the second time, he realizes it’s not a wall at all, not really. It’s a window. Dean runs his hands along the smooth surface.

Dean squints, still fighting the darkness, though it’s clearer now. A doe lies on the other side of the glass. Her eyes are wide, open and framed by long, curling lashes. Dean’s unsure what the creature’s presence means, but he watches her stillness, holds onto it, lets the calmness steady his breathing, reign in his heartbeat.

Red splatters the window. Dean shouts and jumps away. The deer’s head hangs limp, its neck gripped by the jaws of a yellow-eyed tiger.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean is in a zoo. He’s in a fucking exhibit at the zoo. If the whole concept of aliens wasn’t utterly ridiculous he’d be sure that’s what this is. Some sort of Martian zoo, and the plaque on their cage would read

_Homo-sapiens_

_Earth_

_Endangered (read: super fucked) Species_

Dean’s not with the Martians, though he wishes he were, and a part of him wishes he’d been taken prisoner by the invaders, the Demons, as they were called by propaganda– but none of them are left. The fertility plague and the war had seen to that, but if he’d been taken prisoner by them, he’d at least known what he was getting into. This is a unknown, and that’s what truly shakes him.

Dean groans and leans back against the wall. He presses his the insides of his wrists to his eyes. He’s terrified, but achingly exhausted. Dean measures his breaths, counts them, until sleep drags him away and he dreams of his bed, of outside and then of the fires.

 

. . .

 

Artificial light shimmers in through the glass, illuminating the enclosure and waking Dean. He wipes the sleep from his eyes and examines this place more closely.

The concrete floor is scattered with hay, the glass walls are dotted with greasy finger prints. A structure in the center of the cage reminds Dean of a cat scratching post, but it’s big enough for the grown man curled at its base. A man with muscled legs and arms wrapped in lightly tanned skin, which means he probably gets to go outside occasionally. He has dark brown hair and an inch thick collar with a brass tag around his neck. Dean can’t read the words etched into the tag from this distance.

The man lets out a sound something between a growl and purr as he stretches and wakes. Dean tenses. He has no idea what comes next. Something is very _different_ about this man and it worries Dean. Had this zoo or whatever it is taken the man because he is different or has what they’ve done to him here made him different? And what are they going to do to Dean?

“Uh, mornin’,” Dean manages.

The naked man rolls over and his lips twitch into a small smile.

“Know where we are?” Dean asks.

Still no response. The man just crawls over on hands and knees and sniffs Dean.

“You already did that.” Dean presses back on the man’s shoulders and the man sits down just a few inches from Dean.

The light glints off the man’s tag and Dean wants to touch it, to see what is inscribed on the brass. “May I?” Dean asks, lifting his hand toward the man, who leans his head back, exposing his neck, in what Dean assumes is permission. He touches the brass and reads the inscription.

CASTIEL

#3678

D: O

“Your name is Castiel?” Dean asks, dropping his hand away from the brass.

Castiel licks Dean on the cheek. Dean’s mouth falls open in surprise and he ducks away from the strange, wet touch. “We’re gonna not do that. Ever. Kay, Cas?”

Cas huffs and stares down. As far as Dean can tell, Cas understands his words, or at least some of them, despite his lack of reply.

“Can you talk?”

Again, Cas doesn’t respond, he just rolls down his side and over in the hay so his bare torso lies on the concrete, his arms flat out in front of him, his ass elevated slightly. This is the weirdest shit Dean has ever seen, but Cas, at least in this moment, doesn’t seem unhappy. The opposite really. He seems playful and that weirds Dean even more the fuck out.

“What d’ya want?”

Cas’s eyes drift behind Dean, and Dean follows them. A bright red kickball sits in the corner.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Cas sort of yips and then shakes his ass. And holy mother of shit this is _so_ messed up. Dude thinks he’s a golden retriever.

Slowly, Dean reaches out for the ball. “You want this?”

He doesn’t mean it in a teasing way, but Cas seems to think he does so he yips again and wags his ass even more. Dean rolls the ball toward Cas, who grasps at it greedily and, when it’s between his hands, he flips onto his back and starts tossing it into the air.

Okay, so maybe he’s more of cat or something…not that it makes it less insane.

The concrete door on the back wall slides open. Dean freezes, fear gripping him. Cas drops his ball and sits up.

A man in jeans and a tan button-up short sleeve shirt like a zookeeper’s uniform steps into the room. Dean jumps to his feet and shouts,

“The fuck is going on?”

The man doesn’t reply, doesn’t even look at Dean.

“Hey, asshat! What the hell is going on?” Dean moves toward the zookeeper looking dude who still pays him no attention.

“Come here, Castiel,” the zookeeper says evenly.

Cas huffs, not moving.

“I know. I know,” the zookeeper says with a smile. “But I need you to come, Castiel.”

Cas huffs again, but he gets up, only on his hands and knees of course, and crawls over to the zookeeper.

Dean storms over toward the man. He’s going to deck this guy in the face, then demand answers. Just as he’s lifting his arm, Cas looks at him, shaking his head. It’s Cas’s first attempt at real communication, but Dean is already taking a swing. A flash of silver and unbelievable pain hit Dean. His muscles seize up and he collapses back hard on the concrete. Faintly, outside, he can hear himself screaming.

“Bad,” the zookeeper says as Dean’s slowly coming back to clear consciousness. It’s blurry, but the zookeeper clips a leash to Cas’s collar and ruffles his hair. “Not you, Castiel. You’re my good little omega, aren’t you? So good.”

The zookeeper pulls Cas’s chin so he’s looking up. “Speak please.”

“Yes, sir. Good omega.”

The zookeeper tugs on the leash and guides Cas out of the room.

 _So Cas can talk?_ Dean thinks. _That’s something. But what the ever-loving fuck is an omega?_


	3. Chapter 3

Dean has an escape to plot, something he hasn't done since the Demons took him hostage just south of Nashville. At least, he’s done it before. He’s got that experience under his belt, though he’d had back up then. He’d never have gotten out of there if it weren’t for Jo ( _and she’d probably gotten out of there if it weren’t for you_ , Dean thinks and shakes off the thought).

As far as he can tell, this enclosure has three possible entrances and exits. The door the zookeeper came through. Locked. A door, about the size of a microwave ( _God, remember those)._ Not locked, but useless. A grate, apparently used to piss in (Dean had seen Cas do it earlier) is bolted tightly to the floor.

None of this helps at all. If he ever leaves the enclosure, Dean’ll have to keep his eyes open for breaks in this place’s security. For now, Dean must wait.

 

About a half hour after leaving, Cas returns a little dazed, a little sleepy.

“I know you can talk,” Dean says cautiously. Cas lays down on his spot by the climbing structure and yawns.

“Fine, don’t talk to me. I’m Dean, by the way and what the fuck is an omega?” Dean grumbles. He doesn’t expect Cas to answer, and he’s not surprised when he doesn’t.

Dean leans back and groans mostly to himself, “I’m fucking hungry.”

Cas sighs heavily and then gets onto his hands and knees. He crawls over to the small door and slides it open. He pulls out two plates, takes one for himself and then shoves the other toward Dean. Cas also pulls out two large lidded grey plastic jugs of water. That stuff wasn’t in there when he looked. Must be on some sort of schedule.

A few hamburger patties and some mashed potatoes fill the plates. It doesn’t look terrible. Dean’s mouth is dry, his lips cracked, so he pops of the lid and takes an enormous gulp of the lukewarm liquid.

“Uh, thanks, Castiel.” Dean picks up the plate.

“Cas, I like Cas.” It’s a small whisper, but Dean finds comfort in a break of the silence between them.

Dean grins. “Cas it is then.”

Dean sits in the far corner of the room, using broken pieces of the hamburger like a spoon for his mashed potatoes. Cas eats the patties with his hands but then licks the potatoes off his fingers, that long pink tongue curling around each digit. Dean quickly shakes the thought away.

When he’s done, Cas puts his plate back where he got it from so Dean does the same. Dean walks over, pisses in the grate and then zips up.

“Where do we go number 2?”

“Outside.”

If Dean gets to go outside, this is good. If there’s a lapse in security, it’s likely outside.

The artificial lights over their heads flicker out suddenly and with a buzz. It must be night, but Dean hasn’t been outside to see and there’s no natural lighting in here. He could be wrong.

Cas lies down in his spot again, his body now just a dark silhouette again. Dean sighs. He’s going on night two in this place with very little more information than he had had before, but what can he do? At least, Cas does some talking now.

“Night, Cas,” Dean says as he leans into the corner he’d sort of taken as his own, and cushions his back on a large blue dog bed he’d found inside the climbing structure. Even though it backed up to the tiger enclosure, he found it comforting.

“Don’t fight, Dean,” Cas’s voice comes quietly. “They’ll come. Don’t fight. Easier. Better.”

“What are you talking about, man?”

“Not man,” Cas replies, “Omega.”

 

. . .

 

Cas is right. They do come. In the morning, the door opens and they demand Dean come to their side. He yells at them again and the zookeeper shocks him with the metal rod and drags him into a cage not tall enough to stand up in. He’s wheeled down a boring concrete hall ( _no exits here. Doors locked with eye scan.)_ with numbered doors and not much else. They finally enter a door marked O37.

The room is about the same size as the enclosure, but it’s clean with white walls and tiles. There is a sink and few bright computers. Also a metal rectangle on the floor in the center of the room, with cuffs in four corners.

“Remove your clothes, Dean." The zookeeper points the shiny metal rod into the mouth of the now-open cage.

“Hell no,” Dean barks.

His eyes narrow, his grip tightens on the metal weapon. “Remove them.”

Dean leans in. “Screw you.”

“Listen to the Keeper,” a woman’s voice barks at Dean and then turns to the ‘keeper’. “Take him out, strap him down and cut off his clothes.” The woman wears a white lab coat and tight bun. He hadn’t seen her enter the room. She smells like cheap vanilla perfume – like the kind 13 year old girl’s used to wear. It’s unsettling. “It’s easier for you, Dean, if you give into us. We’ll take good care of you.”

A long pole with a collar over the end like an old-time dog catcher would use snaps around Dean’s neck. He tries to pull it off, but it’s too tight. It presses on his windpipe as he’s yanked from the cage. He’s dragged until he’s on the metal surface.

Several others in scrubs ( _medics he hears them called)_ step forward and restraints are locked around Dean’s wrists and ankles as he thrashes. He’s locked to the floor on his hands and knees. The keeper comes at him with a pair of shears.

Dean’s heart pounds as fear crashes over him.

“Get your hands off me, you freaks.”

The shears slip easily through the fabric of his flannel shirt and his jeans. His boots are tugged off, his socks too. Last, the medic cuts off Dean’s grey boxers and he’s naked in the cool, too cool, air.

He’s completely fucking naked.

“Why won’t anyone tell me what the fuck is going on? You bunch of fucking fuckers!”

The keeper backs away from Dean, leaving him huffing on the floor.

“Should we get the gag, Doc?” the keeper asks.

“Yes, Raphael, let’s.”

 _Oh, so the fucker’s name is Raphael_ , Dean thinks. _Wait, gag?_

Raphael hands the doctor something with black straps and rubber ball a little bigger than a golfball. She kneels down in front of him, pulls his chin down and presses the rubber ball into his mouth.

_Oh, shit. Oh shit, oh shit. What the hell?_

The doctor rubs her thumb over his lip. “He looks excellent like that. Let’s keep it in a couple days – take it out only to feed and water him. It’ll be good for him.”

_A couple days? This has got to be some kind of fucking joke?_

The doctor pulls down a lever on the wall. The ground trembles beneath Dean, and then lifts until a platform just big enough for him has raised to the Doc’s eye level.

“We’ve already done the DNA coding,” she says to Raphael. “Excellent genetics. Should present omega, despite his attitude.”

Raphael runs his hand over Dean’s side. “Attitude has very little to do with it in the end, though. Remember Castiel?”

The Doc nods thoughtfully. “Hell of fighter then, so strong willed. Beautifully compliant, perfect omega specimen now.” She smiles at Dean, touching his chin gently. “It’ll be the same for you, Dean. Just let go. You can stop worrying about everything you used to worry about the fear, the loss, the fires and the plague, your memories of the Demon war – that whole dystopian mess out there – you can let it go and be happy.”

Let it go and be happy? Dean can never. He can’t forget what’s out there. What’s happened. He can’t forget about Sam and Bobby, about what the world has tumbled into. The famine, the wandering, the disease, the fires… all of it. It’s the end and Dean knows it – it’s not something he’s going to forget. But he can’t say anything. He has no choice but to sit here in this sterile white exam room being stared at by Dr. Evil and her henchman.

Raphael rolls in an IV cart and preps Dean’s wrist before inserting the tube. Dean flinches at the pain, but then a clear substance is pumped into his body. He feels cold all over and then almost burning hot. Not long after, a light-headed buzz sets in and makes him feel like he’s floating.

Then sensation is almost good, distant, when a large hand grabs his cock and he’s shocked out of that headspace. Dean tries to jerk away, but Raphael just squeezes. _Shit. Shit. No. Shit._

“He’s bigger than most omegas,” Raphael says.

The Doc shines a bright light in Dean’s eyes and then checks his ears. “I’m gonna need a sample. If you behave better, you can do it yourself in the future, but right now I can’t trust to let you out of your restraints.”

One of the medics rolls in a cart with a television on it. Dean hasn’t seen a working television in years. The sight brings tears to his eyes and then it gets even better, if that’s the right word for it – it’s porn. Two girls and a guy porn.

Raphael’s hand slides, slowly up and down his dick and then faster. Dean doesn’t want to think about the stranger touching him, but he does want to think about the porn he hasn’t seen in way too long, the stuff from the IV makes him fuzzy, and it all starts feeling good in head-rush way that it shouldn’t.

“Responsive,” Raphael says clinically. That makes Dean try to tear away again, but it’s no use.

“Look, Dean,” Doc says, “We don’t _enjoy_ doing this, but it’s important work for all of us if we plan on surviving and you signed up for it. Your sacrifice will ensure that your family is well taken care of. That we all are.”

 _I signed up for it?_ Dean can’t believe what he’s hearing. Of course he didn’t fucking sign up for this nonsense. Just a mind game. He knows those well. _Oh that feels so damn good._

“Your DNA tells us you’re going to present Omega, which means your body is going to go through a lot of changes. Sometimes uncomfortable, painful ones, and this might not be your favorite thing, but it really is necessary.”

Another medic pulls on a blue rubber glue and steps behind him. His eyes widen as something cold and wet touches his ass and then presses inside. Dean shakes his head.

Doc grabs his face between her cold hands. “Dean, if you relax it will feel good. We’re not trying to hurt you.” Fingers move slowly inside him, more an intrusion than anything, despite the fact that he’s enjoyed this shit once or twice or maybe more in his life. The fingers leave suddenly and something much larger presses against him. “Take a deep breath in, Dean,” he hears the Doc’s words, does what she says, and then feels the stretch and pain of something being shoved inside him, “all right now, blow it out.”

Dean’s been so distracted by the object being pushed inside him and left there he’s nearly forgotten about the hand stroking his dick. He’s also drooling a little thanks to the gag. Now he remembers in striking color as it all comes together. The touch, the porn, the dizzy-rush from the IV. Dean’s close even if he doesn’t really want to be.

“Good job, Dean, just a little more and we’ll have what we need okay.” Dean barely registers the Doc’s words as he comes into the plastic cup Raphael holds beneath him.

“There we go. So good, Dean, thank you.” Doc pats Dean’s hair as he gasps for breath, coming down from the strange high.

Raphael rolls up a cart with two pegboards on them, each filled with collars of different shapes and sizes. This is where Cas must’ve gotten his. One has a sign above it that says ‘Alpha’, the other a sign that says ‘Omega”.

“Go ahead and pick,” Doc says with a smile.

No way in hell Dean is going to pick his fucking slave brand or whatever it was and they could just suck it.

“Don’t be like that, Dean. You’re here. You agreed to be here – to serve the cause,” the Doc’s voice is harsh, intimidating, for the first time, “this should be your choice, one you can be proud of here.”

Dean thinks for a moment before realizing there isn’t anywhere else he can go. He’s supposed to pick from the omega side. He understands that much, but he won’t give them the satisfaction.

Dean nods and Doc releases the wrist without the IV from the restraint. He points at a silver spiked collar on the Alpha.

“Those are the alpha collars,” Raphael snarls.

“I told him he could pick. Let him have it.” Doc picks the collar up and fastens it around Dean’s neck. She fits two fingers underneath the leather and the places her hand out. Raphael lays a brass tag in her hand and, before she fixes it to his collar, Dean gets a brief look at what it says.

DEAN

#4503

D:O


	4. Chapter 4

 

Dean is naked on his hands and knees by Raphael’s side, a leash attached to his collar. He can’t believe he’s doing this, but he’s bleary from whatever they’d injected him with and fighting isn’t any use. He’ll have to find a different way to escape, something more subtle.

Raphael walks Dean through the door into the enclosure. Cas is sitting at the top of the climbing structure, looking down on them.

“Castiel, boy, come here,” Raphael says. Cas scurries down and rushes over to Raphael. He leans against Raphael’s leg and gets pet in return. Cas smiles.

Raphael sets Dean onto his ass and then ties his wrists and hands up so their useless and locked together.

“That’s Dean,” Raphael says to Cas. “He’s gotta stay like that for few days. You’ll show him the ropes though, boy, won’t you? Take his gag out whenever you eat and to drink, but put it back on when you’re done. Talk to me.”

Cas looks up at him those blue eyes wide. “Yes, sir.”

Raphael ruffles Cas’s hair, unleashes Dean and leaves.

Cas moves closer to Dean and touches the gag in Dean’s mouth. “You fought.”

Dean did fight, and he’ll keep fighting, just with less violence and more careful planning. He’ll find a way out of here, though he’s sees nothing to help him yet.

It’s a difficult rest of the day. Dean’s never had anything more than fingers in his ass before and now he’s got something at least, probably bigger, than the size of a dick down there. He can only see the base in the window. It’s pink and his rim is pulled tight around its size.

“You need it,” Cas says.

“Like a hole in the head,” Dean growls.

“You need it.”

“You don’t have it.” Dean blushes. Maybe that’s weird, maybe he shouldn’t have noticed that.

Cas doesn’t seem to think anything of it. “Used to.”

Cas lies down. He must not want to talk anymore. It’s strange how quickly Dean’s picking up on Cas’s non-verbal cues.

Dean’s arms hurt and so does his whole body for that matter. Dean flops down onto the dog bed. He can hardly move because of his pinned arms. Dean doesn’t know much but he knows he has to work his way out of these ties if he’s ever gonna break out of here.

Dean naps and dreams of freedom.

. . .

 

“Fuck this shit.” Dean stares at the food in front of him. Strips of chicken tenderloin and cooked baby carrots.

Cas swallows his last carrot and then looks up at Dean. “Eat.”

“No hands, Cas.”

Cas sighs softly and scoots closer to Dean. He breaks off a bite sized piece of a chicken and presses it in between Dean’s lips. Dean has to take the bite. He takes another and another from Cas’s gentle hands.

“So I don’t get it. Alpha, Omega. They said I’d signed up for this crap but I don’t remember,” Dean asks.

Cas pushes another carrot into Dean’s mouth as he says, “ _How would you like to be part of the solution? One of the brave few to rescue humanity from extinction?”_

Dean’s stomach drops. He remembers the pamphlet, the application – the possible redemption of humanity, a way out of the fertility plague that had left all human females unable to bear children. Sam begged Dean not leave him and Dean told him to stay with Bobby, that this would make things better. “Oh, shit. I did – I signed up for- I didn’t know.”

Cas doesn’t react other than to hold the grey water jug up to Dean’s lips. “Drink.”

Dean opens his mouth and swallows. Cas stares at him, and Dean doesn’t avert his gaze.

When Dean’s finished with his meal, Cas puts the plates in the cubby and Dean relaxes against the wall. His voice is a whisper. “How is this supposed to save humanity? What even is it?”

There’s a long time before Cas replies quietly, “Hope.”

What can he even say to that?

“I have to piss.” So Cas helps Dean get up and do his business. When he’s done, Cas comes towards Dean with the gag.

“Do you have to put that back in?” Dean groans. Cas just presses the rubber ball back into Dean’s mouth and fastens the straps. He looks at Dean for a moment and licks his face. It’s wet and strange, but Dean doesn’t mind it nearly as much as he did the first time.

“Sleep,” Cas purrs as he helps Dean lie down on his side.

Dean expects Cas to crawl back to his normal spot, but he doesn’t. He drags his own bed over and curls up just inches from Dean.

 

Dean never works out of the ties himself, but he behaves and gets them off in a few days. He’s thrilled, but the gag stays on.

The first time he has to shit is the most embarrassing moment of his life. First, it hurts like hell because it’s been a long time, and he has to wait for Raphael to come to take Cas to his appointments and then Raphael, the utter fucking douche, takes out Dean’s gag and makes him beg for it. He has to _beg_ just to shit. Then, Raphael calls him a “good pup” and pulls the plug out of his ass, slowly, almost kindly, so it doesn’t hurt. That makes it worse.

It’s nice though because Raphael leashes him and takes him to a secluded little patch of grass outside. It’s surrounded by a high concrete fence with barbed wire at the top and signs that read HIGH VOLTAGE. This isn’t his way out either.

However, Dean can feel the wind and the air and the sun. Wherever they are, it doesn’t smell like fire and that’s impossibly wonderful. Dean’ll have to get over the embarrassment and ask for this more.

When he’s done, Raphael pushes his shoulders down so Dean’s ass is in the air.

“Got you a new one.” Raphael puts on a rubber glove and gently fingers Dean for a moment. The touch coils deep and sick in Dean’s stomach. God, it’s embarrassing, violating, but there’s nothing Dean can do. Then Raphael slides the plug back into Dean, puts the gag back in and that’s that. Dean can go back to the enclosure and try to forget about it.

 

Dean enjoys his time talking to Cas when the gag is out during feeding times. Cas says little, but his eyes are always wide and he always listens. Also, it helps Dean forget, helps him know they’re in this together.

Dean’s taken every other day to have more of that stuff, the omega serum, as he’s heard Doc call it, injected into him. Every time he gets a little dizzier, a little softer. The Doc’s medics have given him a few warm baths too. He doesn’t always hate it.

He plays with Cas a lot too. They toss the ball back and forth and sometimes Cas will pin Dean and nuzzle into his neck and lick him. Dean doesn’t mind it at all anymore. Cas is his friend; it’s comforting to have him close like that.

At first Dean spends a lot of time thinking about escape, planning it, looking for ways out, but slowly he thinks about it less and less. It seems less possible and less necessary.

He doesn’t have to fight here – and Cas, well Cas is here too.

 

 

Voices startle Dean from sleep. Bleary eyed, he sits up on his haunches and listens. Cas is stretched out next to Dean but still asleep.

“Should be in a few weeks,” Dean hears the voice, a man’s, but he doesn’t see the source.

“He’s due for it,” a woman replies.

“First time’s always hard.”

“Wonder if he’ll catch?”

They sound like their coming from beneath them, from wherever the “pee grate” leads. _Wow, what a shitty job_ , Dean thinks.

“Unlikely on the first time,” the woman continues, “though we could use the break. Who’s the doc pairing him with again?”

Dean understands almost none of this conversation despite how closely he is listening.

“Benny.”

“Castiel and _Benny_? They don’t seem to like each other at all.”

“Benny’s our best alpha and Castiel won’t like it, but he’ll present for him.”

These words are all foreign to Dean, but they leave him…unsettled…he knows somewhere in the back of his mind they should make him feel more afraid but no he just feels unsettled. Yes that’s all, just unsettled.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

The next time Dean goes to the exam room, things are a little different. It all starts the same. Dean on his hands and knees on the metal table, Doc and the medics poking and prodding, the florescent light blinding his eyes, when Doc says something new,

“I’m gonna take this out, boy, but I can always put it back in.” The Doc smiles and unlatches Dean’s gag. He gasps for air and wipes his face. He’s so happy, thrilled really, to not have this anymore that he doesn’t even think to back talk.

The Doc scratches Dean behind his ear and it feels nice.

“Good job, Dean,” she says.

Raphael comes into the exam room. Without saying anything, he nudges Dean to get his ass in the air and pulls out the plug. It stings. Raphael tosses it in a trash can. Dean feels a quick sense of relief. Maybe he’s done with that too. He got the gag out after all.

The Doc hooks up the IV and attaches it to the bag. Dean listens to the drip, finding solace in its steady rhythm.

“We’re gonna need another sample.” They haven’t taken a sample since the first time Dean came back here. He tenses, but it hardly lasts as the serum kicks in and Raphael slides a finger inside him.

“Dizzy,” Dean mutters, feelings hands come to grip him and hold him up.

The Doc pets his head. “Yeah, it’ll be like that for a while longer. It’ll get better as your body adjusts.”

Finally when it’s over and they have their sample, Dean feels sated. He always feels like this after the treatment. Warm, fuzzy and far off.

Raphael opens a drawer and pulls out a large green plug, silicone and soft looking, but very, very big.

“Still?” Dean whines.

“It’s a larger one, but these are for your own good, pup. Remember deep breath in and out.” Doc spreads him open and Dean no longer feels that desire to crawl away. These people have seen everything and he’s just not embarrassed anymore, not ashamed. There are worse feelings.

Doc slaps her hand over the end of the plug and Dean yelps. He’s never heard that sound come out of his mouth before, and it’s a bit disorienting. Cas makes that sound.

“Wanna go play?” she asks.

Dean cocks his head. “Play?”

She nods. “Yeah. Play.”

“Uh.”

Doc clips the leash unto his collar and Dean hops down from the table. He naturally gets on his hands and knees now. He does it without thinking.

“Let’s go, pup.”

 _Yes, Dean, pup. Yes,_ Dean thinks, but he can still stop himself from saying it aloud.

 

. . .

 

Dean’s only ever been outside for crapping purposes. He can hardly believe what he’s seeing now. He’s in a large enclosure with high concrete fences they can’t see beyond, but there’s blue sky and wind on his face. Tall trees extend long leafy branches, providing shade. There are rocks to climb and structures like the one in his and Cas’s enclosure.

Probably 20 or 30 other people roam the yard with him. Like Cas and him, they’re naked, age ranging anywhere from 18 – 25, Dean guesses because that was on the pamphlet Dean had read. _Seeking volunteers 18 – 25._ They also each have collars. They all play like Cas and Dean do. They run, chase, romp or play fight. Nobody looks scared or dirty or underfed.

Cas, sun on his bare skin, rolls around in the soft green grass, alone but content.

Doc unleashes him. “Go on, Dean.”

He hurries over to Cas. Cas says nothing, just hands Dean the other side of the rope he’s tossing in the air and that’s that.

They play in silence for awhile when a thought from the other night sneaks up on Dean.

“Cas, who’s Benny?” Dean’s right hand grips the rope Cas tugs on on with both hands. He lets go, falls back and rolls around in the grass onto his back.

“Alpha,” Cas huffs.

“Alpha?”

Cas snorts. “Assbutt Alpha.”

A smile tugs at Dean’s lips. It’s so easy with Cas. Easiest thing in the world. But why? “Assbutt?”

Cas sits up onto his haunches and looks seriously at Dean. “Yes.”

Cas grabs onto the rope again and tugs. He looks so happy, carefree, this way. It’s a good look on him. Dean hasn’t seen anyone look that way in years. He hasn’t felt that way in what seems like a lifetime.

“There any alphas here?” Dean asks.

Cas rolls onto his back again, but he holds onto the rope. “Sometimes. Don’t see any today.”

There’s a long pause where Dean just plays with Cas and his rope.

“You like this don’t you?”

Cas sighs. “Relaxing. Fun.”

Dean grins, his eyes narrowing slightly. He yanks the toy away from Cas. “What if I don’t let you have it?”

Cas barks playfully at him and Dean laughs, about to hand it back to Cas when Cas freezes. Sniffs, freaking _sniffs,_ the air.

“What’s going on?” Dean asks.

Cas looks over Dean’s shoulder. “The alphas.”

Dean turns around to see a crew of about 20 men and women, all with larger collars like his own, some are studded or spiked, some are chains or prongs. They walk upright and they _smell._ Not terribly, just strongly. Like pine and fresh air and snow. It’s odd to say the least.

“Hey, sexy,” shouts an Alpha with curly brown hair. She winks at Cas. Dean tenses.

“Want my knot,” shouts another one of the Alphas, but Dean doesn’t see which it is.

“Brutes,” Cas growls.

Dean nudges his shoulder. “You okay?”

“Yes, Dean.”

The line of Alphas march off to the far side of the yard. They’re noisy and laughing and loud. Talking a lot – barking and growling too – but talking.

“Thought the no talking thing was a rule.”

Cas shakes his head. “No rule. Just don’t like to talk. Let’s go back inside.”

 

. . .

 

A horrible howl wakes Dean from his sleep. He jolts up and can hardly believe what he hears and sees.

“I need – please. Make it stop. I need – knot, take. Need, need.” Cas thrashes around on the floor. He’s whimpering and shaking. It’s almost like he’s having a seizure, but it’s different somehow.

Dean shakes his shoulders. “Cas, Cas, are you okay?”

Those blue eyes connect briefly with Dean’s and a jolt of true fear rockets through him. “Dean. Help. I think I’m-“ Cas’s voice turns into a pained, prolonged howl.

Dean pounds wildly on the glass. He startles the tiger next him who jumps and growls. Dean barely notices. “Help! One of you freaking psychos get in here and help him! Please!”

Dean shouts his voice hoarse before a group of keepers, Raphael among them, march into the room.

“Finally.”

“Need, need. It hurts.” Cas’s voice is broken and small.

Dean stands up without thinking, his heart is hammering. “What’s going on? What’s happening? Is he gonna be okay?”

“Dean, sit,” Raphael commands and Dean does. “Castiel is in heat. He’ll be fine.”

The keepers pick up Cas’s twisting body and haul him out of their room. Dean sits there and stares, catching a flash of those blue eyes before the keepers shut the door behind them.


	6. Chapter 6

Dean hardly slept the night before. He mostly paced the cell, waiting, wondering and worrying about Cas. About where he went, about what was happening to him. Now, Cas returns, led wordlessly through the door by Raphael.

“You okay?” Dean asks.

Cas does not respond. He crawls to his spot by the climbing structure, not bothering to take his bed near Dean’s with him. Dean shoves away his disappointment, the drop in his stomach. That’s not important now. Cas is.

Dean tries to get Cas’s attention a few more times but he receives no reply for his trouble. Concerned, he pulls their food plates from the cubby. Cas usually does it – Dean honestly never has before. He sets the plate in front of Cas who doesn’t even look at it.

“Soups on,” Dean says. Still no response. “Come on, man. You need to eat.”

Cas curls in on himself, pulling his knees tightly into his chest. The change in position reveals a red, swollen wound at the back of his neck.

“What’s this?” Dean touches just beneath it. Bile burns in his throat.

Cas startles, cries out and runs over into the corner. He huddles there, whimpering.

“Okay, okay. Sorry,” Dean whispers.

Cas briefly looks up at him with wet and red-rimmed eyes.

“What happened to you, man? Talk to me.” Dean sighs.

Cas just turns away.

 

The rest of the day passes in silence. Cas says nothing and the occasional words Dean speak get ignored entirely. They receive lunch and dinner, but Cas won’t eat any of it. He won’t come out of the corner by the tiger enclosure. Raphael comes by to let them into the yard, but Cas doesn’t want to go and Dean doesn’t want to leave Cas. Dean tries to ask Raphael what’s wrong with Cas, but he gets no reply. Nobody talks to him. Nothing makes sense. The fear Dean thought he’d shaken is coming back.

Later that night, not long before they’d normally go to bed, Dean tries something else. He reaches for Cas’s favorite red ball and he tosses it back and forth between his hands.

Cas looks up, focusing on Dean. Dean’s lips quirk into a small smile.

“I think this is my ball now and Cas can’t have it. Nope. It’s mine.”

Cas perks up like he’s gonna come bounding toward Dean and take the ball – like things are normal and okay, but then he just slumps back down and closes his eyes.

Dean sighs and lies down. “Night, pal.” He doesn’t know what else to do. How to fix this. Dean wants desperately to fix this.

He lies there for a while, but can’t sleep. Cas begins to thrash violently, cry and whimper.

Dean shakes his shoulders. “Cas, wake up. You’re having a nightmare.”

Cas shoves Dean back hard. He hits his shoulder on the concrete. “Get away from me. Don’t, don’t – stop. I don’t want to – please.”

“You’re safe. It’s me. Hey, wake up,” Dean says gently.

“Dean?” Cas wakes up with a gasp. He’s breathing heavily and staring down at Dean who is still flat on his back where Cas shoved him.

“Just a dream, Cas,” Dean stares back. He’s aware of each movement of Cas’s, each in and out of his chest. It’s a fragile moment.

Cas looks straight at Dean. A tear streams out of the corner of his eyes. “Not a dream. Not.”

Cas curls up against him. “Whoa, Cas, personal-“ but Dean stops himself. They’ve slept close before but never like this. Never Cas’s bare skin against Dean’s bare skin. The touch tingles. Dean falls asleep, wrapped in a closeness he’ll enjoy but never examine.

 

The screech of the concrete door wakes Dean and Cas. Dean blinks the crusty sleep out of his eyes and sits up. Raphael seems extra stiff, unusually rigid, and he mechanically pats his thigh, jingling keys or change in the pocket of his khaki shorts.

“Castiel, come,” Raphael says. Cas lies still. “ _Castiel._ ”

Raphael approaches Cas and reaches out for his collar. Cas jumps up and growls, baring his teeth like fangs. Raphael trips backwards, barely balancing himself with a hand on the wall.

“No! Bad! Sit.” Raphael shouts.

“Hey, leave him the fuck alone,” Dean snarls.

Raphael sighs, his face becoming gentle. “What’s gotten into you, boy?” He reaches out to pet Cas, and Cas ducks down but lets him. “First time’s hard. It’ll be better next time Benny takes you.”

“Benny? N-next time?” Cas stutters, his eyes wide. These are the first words he’s said since he came back. They are words painted with fear.

Raphael frowns and scratches behind Cas’s ear. “Unless it worked this time.”

Raphael latches the leash to Cas’s collar and leads him out of the enclosure.

Dean isn’t exactly sure what’s happened to Cas, but he’s going to find out and he’s going to stop it, somehow, from ever happening again. Dean doesn’t care what he has to do.

 

. . .

 

About a week has passed since Cas came back to their enclosure, shaken and different. Cas no longer joins Dean in the yard, no longer talks, no longer plays with his red ball. He’s different somehow. Smaller.

Dean barely enjoys his time like this anymore. Occasionally, omegas will approach him and he’ll play with them briefly or talk – the other’s talk more than Cas, but he doesn’t remember their names or care much what they say.

Today, Dean is alone, dozing off under a leafy tree. The cool grass bringing some relief to his dry skin. Still, this isn’t where he wants to be. He wants to be inside that dark, hard room because that’s where Cas is. With a groan, Dean gets on his hands and knees. It’s just more comfortable to walk this way now – and begins to head back to his room.

“Hey, Brother?” A deep southern accent, clearly alpha, stops Dean in his tracks. He smells like a forest that borders an ocean.

“Talkin’ to me?” Dean asks as he turns around. His heart beats faster, his body trembling. Alpha’s make Dean uncomfortable.

He’s tall with broad-shoulders, large arms and a short beard, like a sailor. No, more like a pirate. “No one else ‘round is there?”

Dean tenses. “What’d you want?”

The man sits down in front of Dean. Alpha’s usually keep themselves above omegas and pre-omegas. Dean knows that.

“You live with Castiel, right?”

Dean narrows his eyes. The man sits just a few inches from Dean. He can see the goosebumps that run across the man’s forearms. He bites the inside of his cheek, pushing back the fear. “Who’s askin’?”

The man pauses and swallows. “Names Benny.”

Dean tenses all over. This is the name Cas said with such fear, that’s changed his friend so deeply. Rage strikes Dean like a fist.

“Assbutt Alpha,” Dean says through gritted teeth.

Benny raises an eyebrow. “What?”

“That’s what he called you. Assbutt Alpha.”

Benny frowns. “Makes sense.”

Dean steels himself, fights the urge to look down, away from an alpha’s gaze. “’The next time Benny takes you that’s what Raphael said. What’s that mean?”

Benny shakes his head. “Ah, brother, you really are green, aren’t ya?”

“What’re you talking about?”

Dean’s starting to get a pretty good idea of what’s going on here, but he needs to _know,_ needs to really hear it, if he’s gonna believe it.

Benny runs his hand over his head, his jaw tensing. “Look, just tell Castiel, that I’m sorry. I know we’ve never gotten along, but I never meant to- I was in a rut. He ran and I- he was _crying._ God, I’m piece of shit.”

“You…” Dean can’t even form the words, can’t say them aloud. They’re not his to say. “I don’t care if you’re an Alpha. I’ll kill you. If you come near him again. I’ll kill you.”

Benny just looks down, like he’d let Dean do it. “Didn’t mean to. Didn’t mean for any of this. Just tell him I’m sorry. Tell him I’m a damn sorry worthless piece of shit.”

 

Dean isn’t sure how to bring it up, so he kind of just blurts it after dinner. “Ran into Benny. Said he was sorry. Something about a rut…I’m gonna kill him.”

Cas stares down at his feet, watches his toes crunch the hay. Finally he speaks, “He was in a rut. I didn’t want it to be him, not _him_ , so I ran and he-“ a little sob shakes out of Cas, “I shouldn’t have ran.”

Dean moves to Cas’s side without thinking. His hand falls on Cas’s shoulder. Cas leans into the touch. “Cas, whatever happened it’s not your fault,” Dean says in Cas’s ear, “It’s his. I’m not gonna let him do this to you again. I promise.”

Cas tilts his neck to the side and takes Dean’s hand. He lays Dean’s fingers across the healing wound on his neck. “Held me down like that. With his teeth. While he knotted me.” Cas lets out a long breath and blinks thoughtfully. “Not his fault either.”

Dean’s jaw locks, anger still burning in his veins. “Sounds like his fault.”

“His rut. My heat. Just biology. The price of this place.” Cas shakes his head. “Don’t hurt him, Dean. I don’t want you to. I don’t want you to get hurt either. We don’t have a choice. Me. You. Benny. None of us.”

Dean’s never done this before, and he’s not sure where the thought comes from, but he leans over and licks at the mark on Cas’s neck. Cas purrs so Dean just keeps licking it, softly, slowly, quietly.


	7. Chapter 7

 

Dean’s at his weekly appointment. He attends daily ones, but they’re just short check ups under the bright lights. The one at the end of the week is usually much longer, more intensive. He’s not a fan of it, but he’s used to it.

He stands on his hands and knees on the metal platform. Doc’s nice enough to him now to give him pads underneath to avoid the painful ache from supporting his weight on the unrelenting steel.

“He’s taking a while to present,” the Doc says, circling Dean. She must’ve changed her perfume because it smells much better now, like freshly-baked donuts.

Raphael touches something on his tablet. “Think we could be wrong – that he’s a beta?”

Doc shrugs, which isn’t all the comforting. “He’ll present.”

“He needs to be around more alphas. Spends all his time with Castiel. They usually leave the yard when the alphas show,” Raphael adds. They always talk as if Dean is not here. He’s getting used to it though.

Doc takes the tablet from Raphael adds something to it herself and passes it back to him. “So, we’ll make him stay from now on. See if that shocks his body into presenting.”

 

…

 

Clouds hover low in the sky, heavy with the rain that will fall soon. Dean can smell the crispness of it the air. Somewhere in Dean’s mind, he remembers dry mouths, cracking earth, the dizzy sting of thirst, but it’s so distant he can barely skim the memory. It’s not important anyway. He and Cas are playing together. Just quietly rolling a ball back and forth between them. It’s peaceful, nice. Cas is getting better, healing, inside and out. Dean wishes he could do more for his friend, but how?

Raphael appears through the fog Dean hadn’t even realized had settled in the yard.

“Dean, when the alphas show you’re gonna stay. Want you to get to know a few of them. It’ll be good for you.”

Dean nods. Raphael pats his head. “Good pup” and walks away.

Cas tenses, looking at Dean with wide eyes. He looks terrified, but says, “I’ll stay with you.”

The alphas walk in like wild dogs through the gate. Barks, howls and crude insults herald their arrival. Dean has to stay, but Cas can’t and shouldn’t. Dean’s on his own for this one.

“Go, Cas. I’ll be fine.” Dean gives Cas a smile. Cas half-smiles back and then heads back in the direction of their enclosure.

A tall, bony alpha approaches. He smells sour, all wrong. Dean’s legs burn with the urge to run. The alpha grabs Dean’s collar and yanks him down. Dirt fills Dean’s mouth. “You got an alpha collar, but you’re pre-omega.”

Dean shoves the alpha off and stands on his feet. He hasn’t been here in a while; it’s disorienting. The bad smelling alpha stands and a few other ones come next to him, a huge, growling pack. One steps forward, a female with long flame-red hair. “Uppity thing. Maybe we should show him a thing or two.”

“Back the fuck off, dogs.” A deep, familiar voice commands.

“Aw, come on, Benny. Can’t claim all the pretty ones for yourself,” the bad-smelling one says, sidling up to Dean again. Dean shoves him back.

“Technically, Alastair, I _can._ But ‘m not claiming. Dudes not even omega yet.” Benny brings himself beside Dean.

“Maybe, I can fuck it into him,” Alastair snarls. The alphas at his side bark and laugh. Dean lunges at them. Thick arms reach around his waist and hold him back.

“Come on, let’s get you out of here,” Benny growls against Dean’s ear. He carries him and drops him off near the pond.

Dean falls to his hands and knees again. The ground squishes, wet and marshy, between his fingers. “I could’ve taken him.”

Benny joins Dean in the same position. “I believe you, brother, but the Doc wouldn’t have liked one of her strongest alphas in pieces.”

“Somebody has got to tell me what’s going on. Heats, ruts, knots – I mean – I don’t understand it. No one will tell me, when I ask they look at me like I’m crazy. Like I should just know and I don’t.”

Benny nudges him gently. “Doc’ll explain when you present omega. You’ve been here awhile. Don’t think I’ve ever seen it take so long.”

Dean backs up and steadies himself. He’s not quite sure why he’s bringing it up now, but it’s out of his mouth before he can stop it. “Castiel didn’t want you. He doesn’t.”

Benny lets out a long, sad sigh and hangs his head. “I know. I don’t want him either. Couldn’t help it.”

Dean swallows. “I know,” and much more importantly, “he knows.”

Benny looks up at Dean and holds his gaze for a moment. He nods once. It’s curt, but Dean can feel something there. Something he’s not quite sure about. Dean changes the subject.

He flops back and reaches between his legs. He doesn’t even think about how he’s got his ass in the air, sparkly purple plug and everything, just a few inches from Benny. “Well can this shit hurry up because I could really use this out?”

Dean looks at Benny, whose face is blushed .“Pre-Alpha’s get cock rings. Help bring on our knots,” he says distractedly, but then laughs.

Dean rolls over so he’s back on his stomach, stretched out in the grass and looking up at Benny. “That fucking sucks.”

Benny chuckles. “Maybe I _should_ claim you.”

Dean’s eyes widen and he snaps, “Like hell.”

“You could stay with Castiel then,” Benny says.

“What?” He’s already living with Cas.

“Castiel’s gonna have to come stay with me, Dean, soon. If I claimed you too, you could stay together.”

A shiver runs through Dean at the thought of not waking up next to Cas anymore, at not hearing his snoring, at not fighting just to get a few words out of the guy. His time with Cas is the best thing in his life. Not just here, but even before here, what he recalls of it. “Cas really has to leave?”

“Eventually.”


	8. Chapter 8

Beyond the walls of his enclosure, the sun slips away into darkness. Dean dozes on and off, settling into the early evening post-dinner fuzziness. Cas sits with his hands folded, looking into the empty dark hallway where families once strolled with their children to see exotic animals from far off places. Dean took Sammy to a zoo once when they were kids. Seems like a hundred lifetimes ago. For the first time, Dean wonders about Cas before this place, about the life and the man he was.

Cas sighs and frowns.

“Why so glum, Cas?” Dean asks.

“Heat soon.”

 _Now or never_ , Dean thinks. “I’ve been talking to Benny.”

“You have?”.

Dean shrugs. “Yeah, I don’t know. Reminds me of the guys I knew in the war.”

Cas turns towards Dean, head cocked and eyes wide. “You fought in the war?”

“You didn’t?” It’s srange if Cas didn’t. Nearly every person was a soldier at least one time or another. Dean first joined the Selective Army when he was 15 years old. Technically, a person has to be17 to join, but the SA needed bodies so nobody asked.

“I was a cryptographer,” Cas replies.

“Wow, man, badass.” The cryptographers kept the Demons at bay, kept them from knowing where the soldiers were, where the best defenses were located. They also decoded messages from the Demons, so they could predict their next move. If only they could’ve predicted what was really coming, not just for them but for the enemy too. The Selective Army talked about victory like it was something they won, not something handed to them by the fertility plague, even though that’s exactly what happened.

“What was it like? Being a cryptographer?” Dean asks.

“Don’t wanna talk about it. What were you saying about Benny?” If Cas wants to talk about Benny, Dean knows he _really_ doesn’t want to know what happened to Cas during the war. Dean’s having a hard time not thinking about it though.

So Dean tells him about Benny, about his proposition, about Cas and Dean staying together.

Cas bites his lip. Dean’s not sure, but he may be holding back a smile. Could be wishful thinking though. “Lead alphas can claim up to three Omegas.”

“That’s what Benny is? The lead alpha.”

“Yes.”

“But if alphas can claim who they want? Why you and Benny?”

Neither one of them is interested in the other. It makes little sense.

“Special circumstances. That’s what Doc told me.” Cas walks away from the glass and curls up on his bed. “Don’t wanna talk anymore.”

Dean doesn’t say anything else, just slides in behind Cas, and lets himself be lulled into sleep by familiar, rhythmic breathing.

 

The next day, Dean and Cas romp around during yard time. They’ve taken to wrestling a lot recently. They’re both fairly good, but as a front line soldier, Dean is much more trained in hand to hand combat than Cas had been as a cryptographer. They twist and roll and touch each other. It’s fun and freeing. It’s raw and primal, skin against skin. It’s only natural that sometimes his cock hardens and sometimes Cas’s does. Nothing, really, seems odd about it at all.

Cas still leaves, however, when the alphas come, and Dean doesn’t blame him. Dean doesn’t have a choice but to stay though. When the crowd of alphas arrive, Dean feels relief to see Benny leading the way.

“Hey, brother.” Benny grins when he sees Dean.

Dean nods. “Hey, man. Can I talk to you?”

“’ Course.”

Benny leads them just a few yards away from the alpha pack, in a small grove of aspen trees. The sun shines through the gaps in the leaves leaving little droplets of light on their skin. Dean sits down and wraps his arms around his legs. Benny sits just a few feet in front of him.

“What is it, Dean?”

Dean takes a deep breath. He likes Benny. Benny’s kind and good looking. They get along and he can, most importantly, stay with Cas. Yes, Dean can do this. “When I present, I want you to claim me, if you want.” His words come out more rushed than he wanted.

A wide smile splits Benny’s face. “Yeah, I want,” he says slowly in that Southern drawl of his. “This-“ he runs his thumb over the base of the plug. Dean shivers. “wasn’t here I’d take you right now.”

Benny wraps his hand around Dean’s soft dick. “Can I?”

Dean’s eyes go wide. He likes the pressure, the roughness. His heart pounds, but he looks around at the others. A few are looking at them, a few are engaged in their own activities. Dean never thought about what he had seen, but it’s different when he’s thinking about himself. Dean gulps. “Here?”

Benny nudges his face into Dean’s neck and licks under it. “Yeah, pup.” That accent again, growled soft and low against his ear. Dean just nods and lies back.

Rough callouses slide over the smooth skin until Dean’s dick grows to full size. Low little purrs and growls erupt from Dean’s throat as Benny moves his hand up and down. Benny nibbles Dean’s neck.

“You smell so good,” Benny growls. “Haven’t even presented and you smell so good to me.” A large finger presses against Dean’s slit and he nearly screams. Benny bites on Dean’s collar and tugs it gently.

Benny’s hand squeezes tighter now. Moving slow, fast, twisting. A little rougher than Dean normally does to himself, but he doesn’t mind. It feels good to be touched in a non-clinical way. Gorgeous, strong and muscled Benny dwarfs Dean.

Benny pulls Dean’s plug out about half way and slams it back into him hard, punching the air out of Dean. He comes all over Benny’s hand and his own chest.

Benny leans his forehead against Dean’s. “Beautiful.”

Dean blushes, his gaze drifting to Benny’s cock. It’s several inches longer than Dean’s and thicker too, curved and red and swelling at the base. _Knot,_ Dean thinks. He hasn’t seen one before. Benny’s stroking himself slowly.

“What about you?” Dean asks

“Just lie there and look pretty.”

Dean props himself on his elbows and watches. With a just a few rough strokes, Benny throws his head back, shouts and shoots all over Dean’s chest. A hearty chuckle thunders from Benny’s chest.

“Gotta clean you off.”

Dean would rather not spend until his next bath covered in both his and Benny’s come. He’s not expecting Benny to lean forward and lick it all off him, but he does. _I could’ve cleaned in the lake,_ Dean thinks absently, _not that I mind._

He’s glad this happened. It felt good – and, and Benny likes him, Benny wants him, which means no one can separate Dean and Cas. Dean almost cries with relief at the thought.

When Dean returns to the enclosure, Cas glances at Dean and then stares down at his ball. “You smell like Benny.”

“Sorry,” Dean doesn’t know how Cas notices that because there’s something _different_ about their enclosure. It smells like apples – like cinnamon apples and ginger and hard cider – _what the hell?_

“At least we won’t be alone,” Cas looks at Dean and smiles.

Dean sniffs the air again. It’s mouthwatering, it’s overwhelming. “What is that?”

At first Cas furrows his brow as if he has no idea what Dean means and then, “Oh, apologies. I’m going into heat.”

 

. . .

 

Dean is nervous, has been for a long time now. He stares at the door, and he’s asked Raphael where Cas is and Raphael says Cas is fine, but Cas wasn’t fine last time and Dean’s starting to lose his mind a little bit.

Finally, when the door opens, it’s Raphael _and_ Cas. Raphael unleashes Cas who lumbers into the enclosure with a big yawn.

“You okay? You’ve been gone for days, I was worried sick.” He probably shouldn’t be in Cas’s space like this, but if something had happened to him. He hasn’t seen Cas or Benny since Raphael took Cas. The relief Dean feels is overwhelming. Cas is back where Dean can watch out for him.

Cas curls up in his spot, looking relaxed, wrung out. “Still didn’t want it, but I didn’t run. It didn’t hurt. He was gentle and it felt good. I liked how it felt. Very much.”

Dean’s glad to hear it. Glad that Cas may be okay. But something else is bothering him, “Where were you though? For so long?”

“After the first heat, heats last days. I’ve been knotted many times since I last saw you. I’m tired and sore and I’d like to sleep. But I’m okay, Dean.”

 _Wow,_ Dean thinks. He’s not sure he’s ready for all that.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all who have been leaving kudos, subscribing and reading! A special thanks for everyone who has been leaving me comments. I love interacting with you and seeing what you think of story. Thanks again!

Dean’s legs are in stirrups, his ass held up in the air. A cold plastic instrument has been pressed inside of him, stretching him open. Dean is actually very glad he’s been wearing the plug. Dean’s pretty sure Doc’s plastic glove covered fingers are in there too.

“Heard our best made a claim on you, pup? We’ve got to get you ready for him, huh?” Doc says.

“What?”

“Looks like we’re getting somewhere. Your body is starting to change. Might not need a plug much longer.”

Doc pulls out the instrument and it stings and burns, but he’s glad it’s out. Doc presses a plug inside Dean. He doesn’t see it, but it feels even bigger than any of the others.

“Need a sample,” Doc gently rubs his cock. “Would you like to do it yourself?”

Dean yawns. He’s already had the serum and he’s tired and wrung out from it. “You can do it.”

“You’re a presumptuous pup.” Doc slides the plug out and back in a few times. It hits a spot that makes Dean’s toes curl. “Aww, you want this now? That’s good.” Doc bottoms the plug out and says not unkindly, “Do it yourself.”

Dean huffs.

“Oh and we’re gonna have Benny try to knot you into changing.”

Dean’s stomach drops. He’s never – and certainly not with a knot and Dean’s really nervous.

“What? When?” He swallows hard.

Doc smiles and pets his hair. “Soon, pup, now go on.”

 

 

Dean and Cas are playing with Cas’s red-and-blue rope toy – or at least it started that way. Now, it’s mostly just the two of them rolling around, scratching and biting at each other.

“You two having fun?” Benny asks with a small laugh. He’s here today without his crowd of alphas in tow. Dean likes it better when it’s just Benny.

Dean and Cas roll away from each other.

“Hey, Benny,” Dean says.

“Hello, Alpha.” Cas stretches out and looks up at Benny.

Dean’s not quite sure of all the alpha/omega etiquette so he asks, “Should I call you that too?”

Benny runs a thumb over Dean’s lip. “You call me that, I’d mount you right now.” He glances over at Cas with a half-smile. “Not to play favorites.”

Cas snorts. “I’ll survive.”

Benny laughs and then wanders back off to join the rest of the alphas.

Cas pounces on Dean again and Dean rolls him over so Dean is on top.

“You guys seem a little better,” Dean says.

Cas nips at Dean’s ear, “He’s not my mate, but he’s my alpha. I’m okay with that. With him.”

Cas and Dean have started to relax a little, their movements softer and slower when they’re shocked into attention by horrible shouts and snarls across the yard.

“What the fuck is that?” Dean asks. He and Cas run across the yard to the gathered, riotous crowd. They shove their way through.

When they get to the front, they see Benny and Alastair rolling around the ground, but there’s no play in it. Only snarling and growling. It’s vicious, wild – there’s blood and Dean’s not sure whose it is. It’s a blur of muscles and skin.

“We have to help him,” Dean charges forward but Cas catches his arm.

“We can’t,” Cas shouts.

Dean’s heart is pounding, the fear jolting through his body is telling him to do something to help. Benny is his friend, Benny is Cas’s alpha. He can’t just let this happen.

“It’s a lead fight. It happens occasionally.” Cas has a firm, unrelenting grip on Dean.

Benny takes a terrible blow to the face from Alastair’s elbow. His nose is bleeding and so is his mouth. He rolls over onto his back and turns his neck to the side. Alastair spits near Benny and everyone goes silent.

“What’s going on?” Dean whispers.

“Benny’s not lead Alpha anymore,” Cas’s voice is shaky.

Dean can’t make the words come out, can’t say them aloud, but he knows what this means. If Benny’s not lead alpha anymore, he can’t be Dean’s alpha. Dean just lost Cas.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the new commenters I got on that last chapter. It makes me so excited to see who's reading and what y'all are thinking! Here's some more for you wonderful folks :)

The last night Dean and Cas spend together is difficult. They lay curled together. Cas spooned against Dean. Dean’s face nestled into that thick black hair.

“I don’t want to leave you,” Cas whispers.

“Don’t want ya to go, but we’ll still see each other, man. We’ll still be friends.”

“Yes?”

Dean nods.

“Benny – he won’t hurt me,” Cas says and Dean knows Cas believes it. That he and Benny have dealt with what they needed to, even the mark on Cas’s neck has long faded and Benny’s never done anything Cas hasn’t wanted him to since that first time. Still, it’s not easy, not when they’re not the ones making the decisions. It’s Doc – and this place – and Dean has given up hating them for the most part, except now that he can’t stay with Cas, and now that Dean has no idea who will be his alpha.

Dean tightens his arms around Cas. “No one will ever hurt you,” Dean promises. He means that with everything he has left.

The next morning, Raphael gives Cas a new tag for his collar. Everything is the same on it, except Benny’s name has been added to it. Raphael leashes Cas and takes him away from Dean. Even the tiger, who lets out a sad chuff from the other side of the glass, seems to understand that Cas isn’t coming back.

 

It’s about a week before Dean sees Cas again, but in the meantime, Dean makes a new friend, an omega named Charlie. She’s smart and funny and mated to an alpha named Dorothy. They’re both very beautiful and very kind, even Dorothy, well for an alpha. Anyway, Charlie explains to Dean that when an omega first moves in with the alpha who claims him or her, they spend the next days, knotting and exploring and getting to know each other and their new relationship. It’s strange to think of how it would’ve been had everything not been fucked up with Alastair. Benny knotting Dean, just like he does with Cas. The three of them together… now Dean’s life is a mess and he has no idea what’s going to happen to him.

He’s glad when Cas and Benny start coming to the yard again. It’s strange to see them closer though, strange to see Cas taking on his role as Benny’s omega with such ease. Dean’s not sure why he’s surprised.

For the most part, he hangs around Benny or Cas or Charlie and Dorothy and that means he’s been left alone, until one rainy afternoon when Dean is lost in thought, alone and doesn’t see him coming.

“Hey, gorgeous.” Alastair grabs Dean’s hips and pulls him back. He’s pressed behind Dean, like he’s trying to mount. Fear jolts through Dean like fire. And anger too – this alpha is the reason everything is so screwed for him.

“Fuck off, Alastair,” he snaps, kicking away from Alastair.

Suddenly, a hand grips his collar and yanks him down so his face is in the dirt. It’s not Alastair, it’s Raphael. “Don’t speak to the lead Alpha like that. Ever.”

“You can go ahead and fuck off too,” Dean spits, dirt getting into his mouth. “You can all fuck off.” He hasn’t talked back in a long time. Dean’s not sure where it’s coming from.

Raphael pulls Dean up by the collar. Raphael carries a satchel on his side. He pulls a familiar black rubber ball with nylon straps. Dean recognizes it and tries to pull away. “Dean, that is enough,” Raphael snaps. “Open your mouth. Now, pup.”

It’s not worth it. Dean knows when to obey now. He opens his mouth and Raphael presses the gag into his mouth and straps it on tight. “I’ll take it off at dinner,” he says.

Alastair grabs Dean’s chin and anger and fear roils through Dean. “I think when you’re mine, and you will be mine, I’ll keep you like this, except when I want to knot your mouth.” Alastair drops Dean’s face and laughs.

“Go on, Dean. Get out of here,” Raphael says and Dean takes that as his cue to run.

He spots Cas across the yard and knows that’s exactly where he wants to be. Benny’s there too. Sitting up on the top one of the few tables they have in the yard. Some Alpha’s like to sit at them and the keepers do too. Cas is sitting on the ground between Benny’s legs, his back against the bench seat.

Dean doesn’t want to think about what Alastair said – that Alastair wants to claim him. The thought is too terrifying.

Cas’s eyes goes wide as he looks at the gag. “Dean, what’d you do?”

Dean can’t really answer so he just makes a muffled noise he wishes sounded more like “Alastair, the douchebag”, and he glances in his direction.

Benny seems to get it. “Don’t lip off to the _lead_ Alpha.” He spits the word ‘lead” like it’s poison.

Dean sits cross-legged on the grass in front of Cas; he rips some blades out of the soil. No one says anything. They all just sit there. It’s not that it’s awkward. It has been long enough – they’ve adjusted to their new reality. It’s just – well it’s partially because Dean can’t talk and he and Benny usually do almost all of the talking.

Benny breaks the silence when he pats his leg and says, “Come up here, angel.”

Cas looks up at Benny, his bottom lip pouting. Dean would smile if it weren’t for the gag. Grumpy, pouty Cas is one of Dean’s favorite Cas’s.

“Alpha, Dean’s here.”

 _Wait, are they going to?_ Dean thinks. _Of course they are. They’re together now – and all the pairs do it and…he’s seen Charlie and Dorothy…_ Dean’s heart is pounding through his whole body. He can hear it in his ears, taste it on his tongue.

“Oh hush,” Benny tugs lightly on Cas’s hair. “You like it and Dean doesn’t care, do you?”

Dean shouldn’t care – and he doesn’t not really. It depends on a person’s definition of care. It’s not going to make him angry if that’s what Benny means by care. That’s probably what he means by care, so Dean shakes his head “no”.

“Yeah, told you so.” Benny pats his leg again.

Cas does as his alpha asked and climbs into his lap. Dean is staring. He shouldn’t be staring, but he is. His eyes are fixed and neither Benny or Cas seem to mind. Benny reaches between Cas’s legs and touches his hole. This is as intimate as Dean’s ever seen them. Cas purrs a little, his eyes flickering to Dean and then back to his alpha.

“You’re gettin’ wet fast,” Benny says and licks his fingers. The wind blows and Dean can smell it that honey whiskey apple cider smell that comes from Cas and his mouth waters.

Dean assumes that Benny’s gonna turn Cas around, so Cas can wrap his legs around Benny’s waist but doesn’t. Benny leans back and sits Cas down on his cock, with Cas facing right at Dean.

Dean’s mouth falls open as Cas stretches around Benny’s dick. Cas’s mouth is open, his eyes locked on Dean. Cas whimpers– and shit, holy shit, Dean is so hard.

Benny’s muscles flex as he holds Cas. It’s hard to believe how strong he is, how he’s just holding Cas like that, opening him up again and again. He’s worked one finger under Cas’s collar and he’s tugging on it as he pounds into Cas. Dean can’t do anything but watch the two of them. Perfect alpha and perfect omega.

“Don’t know when Alastair got stronger than me,” Benny growls, his hand wrapping around Cas’s dick. He tugs on Cas’s ear with his teeth, then speaks against his neck. “He shouldn’t be stronger than me. Fucking Alastair.” His thrusts get harder. Both Benny and Cas are just staring at Dean, and Dean’s whole body is on fire. He can’t stop himself from reaching down to touch himself. God, he’s so hard and leaking. He’s never seen anything hotter than this and Dean can’t stop himself from scooting closer, moving between Benny’s legs to get a better view.

The way Cas whines as he’s fucked - it’s a damn drug.

“I don’t wanna know what he’ll do now he’s in charge, but it ain’t gonna be pretty. Always had a thing for the pre-Alphas,” Benny grumbles.

Dean’s head spins. He’s incoherent. That smell, Cas’s smell, is everywhere and mixed with Benny’s but Cas’s is so much _more._ Dean drowns in it.

Cas’s whole body flushes; he sweats and gasps for air as he pushes himself back hard on Benny like he just has to have it. Just has to let his alpha have him.

“That’s it, baby. There we go.” And Cas comes. His cock twitches and shoots all over Dean’s face. That does it for Dean, he comes and Benny does too, knotting him and Cas together.

Dean gasps for air, his face hot and sticky and Dean couldn’t care less. Cas is still staring at him with that unrelenting gaze.

Benny sniffs. “What’s that smell?”

Dean doesn’t smell anything, but he does feel something hot and wet spilling out between his legs.”

Cas sucks air in through his lips hard and quick and shakes against Benny. Benny sniffs again.

“That’s – damn – baby,” he says to Cas, “that’s not you.” His eyes widen as they go to Dean. “Dean. Holy shit, It’s Dean.”

Dean can hardly believe it, but he knows it’s true. He’s an omega now – and that means he’s going to go into heat, and when he does, he’ll belong to Alastair.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't wait guys. It's short, but here's another one for you wonderful people and all your lovely comments!

Dean hasn’t left his enclosure for anything other than his appointments and to go to the bathroom since he presented omega. Doc says he gets a different serum now and he’ll only have to be on it until after he goes into heat. He’d feel comforted about not having to be hooked up to machines anymore if he wasn’t so damn afraid of what was going to happen to him. Dean should be able to be happy about getting his plug out, but not like this.

He wanted this when it was going to be Benny to knot him, now he just wants to bury himself underground and hide there forever. So staying in his enclosure and hoping they’ll forget about him is the closest thing he can manage.

Dean jumps when the door opens and can’t believe who he sees.

“Hey, Cas. Didn’t know you could come here anymore,” Dean says, looking back at Cas. There’s something different about it now – about seeing him naked – and there shouldn’t be, but there is. All of that skin, tanned and smooth, it’s hard to ignore. It’s almost like it was when Dean first arrived here.

“With Doc and Alpha’s permission,” Cas says quietly, coming to sit beside Dean. “You haven’t come out of here since you presented.”

“How long until I get claimed, until Alastair…” Dean can’t finish the thought.

“When you go into heat.” Cas’s voice breaks a little though he tries to cover it with a cough.

“But Doc won’t pick someone else for me? Like she did for you?”

Cas shakes his head. “Most likely an alpha,” _Alastair,_ Dean thinks, “will make a claim. Mount you and knot you in public. Don’t know why it was different for me.”

Dean’s pretty sure of the answer but he asks anyway, “Can I say no?”

“If the match isn’t Doc’s and it’s not the lead Alpha,” _which it will be,_ Dean is so bitter about it. “Yes, but the Doc can override it.”

Dean swallows, hoping Cas can’t tell how afraid he is. “Uh, okay.”

Cas lays a hand on Dean’s shoulder and the touch sings through his whole body.

“Remember not to run,” Cas says, “Don’t run, especially if the Alpha is in a rut. Just present.”

Dean turns to look at Cas. They’re so close. “How do I?” he whispers.

Cas smiles sadly. “It comes naturally, but-“ He moves in front of Dean, placing his arms and hands flat on the ground. He lifts his ass into the air, showing off his smooth, round hole. It’s pink and small and tight. Benny takes good care of it.

A thought Dean has to deny sweep across his mind. Cas doing this for Dean. It’s too much. Knot or no, Dean could easily press his dick in there. He wants to – to be that close to Cas.

A line of clear liquid drizzles out of Cas – and Dean’s brain lights up – _apple cider, whiskey, honey, cinnamon, home._ Without thinking, he runs his pointer finger over the liquid and scoops it up. A bunch more leaks out and he wipes it up too and noisily sucks it off his fingers.

It’s not possible, but it tastes even better than it smells.

“Dean,” Cas growls, low and deep, and Dean loves to hear his voice said like that, said by Cas.

“You’re leaking.” Dean can’t stop himself. He just keeps running his fingers over Cas, catching more of his slick and eating it. He’ll never get tired of this taste on his tongue. It takes every bit of restraint Dean has to stop himself from licking into Cas’s ass, burying his face there and eating him out.

Dean is trembling and so is Cas. They’re both soaked with Cas’s slick when Cas weakly says, “I should go back to Alpha.”

 

After Cas visits Dean, Dean decides he can’t just hide forever. He starts going to the yard again and hanging with Charlie and Dorothy or Cas and Benny. Or sometimes just him and Cas and he likes those times. It’s like it used to be, just the two of them, peaceful and quiet and fun too. Just Dean and Cas, and that’s good.

For the most part, Alastair leaves him alone, though he tends to leer at Dean, like he’s waiting for Dean’s heat. Like he doesn’t want to miss it and the minute it happens. He’ll be knotting Dean before he can even do anything about it. But mostly Dean just tries to ignore it, tries to focus on anything else because there’s really nothing else he can do.

So today, it’s a nice day. The air is clean and fresh and Cas is happy about something, but not very talkative. Just crawling all over Dean and rough-housing with him.

Dean’s so distracted by Cas he doesn’t notice when Benny gets there.

“So unfair,” Benny says, casually sitting back on his knees, touching his cock.

“What?” Dean sits up. Dean’s heart drops. Cas is next to him, his face turned toward Dean, but his ass is in the air, ready for Benny to take if he wants. That’s what’s unfair.

Benny gently slaps Cas’s ass. “You don’t have to present right now, baby.” Cas drops back down and goes back to climbing on Dean’s back and biting at him.

“What’s unfair?” Dean asks absentmindedly, his brain still short-circuiting picturing Cas presenting like that.

Benny’s touching himself again. He looks good like this too, happy, flushed, strong. He’s an Alpha, Dean’s an omega and Dean does feel a pull toward him.

“I was supposed to have the pair of you,” Benny groans. “You’re beautiful together.”

Something about those words and Benny’s smirk and Cas’s touches make Dean hard. He glances down at Benny’s dick.

“Not claimed yet,” Dean growls suggestively. He’s had those hands on him once before and he wants them again.

“Sorry, brother. Doc told me I couldn’t play around with you.” Benny takes a deep breath and stops touching himself.

Cas is tugging on Dean’s ear with his teeth, almost pulling him over. “Cas, Cas what are you doing?” Dean shrugs him off with a laugh.

Benny shakes head. “Never saw him like this before you.”

“Like what?” Dean grins at Cas and throws a ball at him. Cas bats it away. “A pain in my ass?”

Benny smiles. “Playful.”

Cas lunges at Dean and Benny grabs him by the collar, pulling him back.

“Okay, okay, angel. That’s enough.” Benny scoops Cas up in his arms. “Time for dinner and then my knot.”

Cas smiles back at Dean as they leave and Dean waves goodbye, then falls back on his back in the grass. He’s still hard and he feels kind of good. Cold hands grab his ankles. He tries to pull away but they’re too strong, like impossibly strong, even for an alpha. He’s locked to the ground.

Alastair lifts Dean’s legs up for a better view of Dean’s ass. “Can’t wait till your heat. Till I get my name on your tag. Keep you permanently gagged and leashed. Knot you whenever and however I want. And, when you’re mine, you’re not getting anywhere near Benny and his omega ever again.”

Alastair drops Dean’s legs, kicks his thigh and then storms off, leaving Dean shaking and alone on the ground.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been in a posting frenzy - I don't even know. I hope you all like the chapter :)

It’s a rainy day so no one is out in the yard except Dean. He hasn’t spent much time here since the incident with Alistair, but he figures today might be safe since the weather is keeping everyone inside.

“Lisa and Victor,” someone says.

“Hmm,” Dean doesn’t quite realize what’s going on until he looks at his friend’s blue eyes. “Oh, hey Cas.”

Cas stretches out next to him. Rain hits his skin and slowly trails across the smooth planes of his body. Dean bites the inside of his mouth, his heart hammering hard in his chest.

“Those are the names of two of Benny’s Alpha friends. They’re not the worst…for Alphas.”

Dean knows what Cas is saying. Maybe if he can get another alpha to try and make a claim Alistair will back off – or maybe Doc will make him. It’s a long shot, but a possibility.

Dean smiles at him. “Thanks, Cas.”

They lie there together until they’re cold and pruny and can’t take it anymore. Only then do they separate.

 

A few days later, Dean meets Lisa. He asks Charlie about her and she says she’s a good alpha and Dorothy introduces them. She’s beautiful, they don’t talk about much, but it doesn’t matter. She’s kind, she’s an alpha. She seems interested, at least somewhat. That’s all Dean really needs to know.

When Lisa leaves with Charlie and Dorothy, Dean spots Cas sitting in between Benny’s legs, resting against his chest. He goes over to join them.

“Okay, Lisa is hot.” Dean flops down in the cool grass besides Benny and Cas.

Cas smiles. “Present for her and see what happens.”

Dean sits up straight. “Just, just, you know?” He puts his arms flat in front of him but doesn’t finish the movement.

Cas rolls his eyes. “Yes, Dean.”

“What if she says no?”

“She might.” Cas shrugs.

“Comforting, Cas.”

“Well, she might.”

Benny reaches out and ruffles Dean’s hair, pulling on the ends. “She’d be fucking crazy to turn you down.”

Dean ducks away from Benny’s touch, but not because it bothers him. “Not everyone’s as obsessed with me as you are. Gonna make poor Cas jealous.”

“Ha.” Cas snorts.

Benny playfully shoves Cas’s shoulder and rolls out from behind him. “Don’t think I can make you jealous, baby?”

Benny grabs Dean’s leg and flips him onto his back. In a second, Benny is over him, trailing his tongue along Dean’s skin, biting at his nipples. Dean gasps and squeezes his eyes shut. When he opens them, Dean meets Cas’s gaze.

Cas’s mouth has fallen open just slightly, his cheeks stained red.

Benny’s tongue slides hot and wet over his navel, down to his dick. Benny licks across it and Dean arches his back, his eyes never leaving Cas. Benny keeps going, groaning along the way, mouthing at Dean’s balls, sucking them one at a time into his mouth.

Benny’s strong arms flip Dean over onto his stomach and push Dean’s legs up like he’s presenting. Dean’s hard and thick. He can feel himself dripping, his slick running down his legs. Cas’s eyes are wide, his pupils blown beautiful and black. Dean’s whole body trembles.

Dean shouts when he feels a mouth on his rim, a tongue pressing inside him. He can feel Benny’s beard against his thighs and he knows Benny shouldn’t be doing this, but he wants him to, wants to watch Cas watch them like this.

Benny’s growling between Dean’s legs, eating him out, and Dean’s never felt anything like this.

Benny leans back enough to say. “I wanna knot you, darlin’. Always wanted to. Since the moment I laid eyes on you. I wanted you to be mine.”

“God, yes. Knot me.” Dean bends his back like a cat and howls when Benny presses a large finger inside him. It’s been so long, too long, since Dean’s been filled. He needs it. He hopes Benny knots him right here.

“Benny, enough.” Raphael snaps. Benny backs off Dean immediately. “What did Doc say?” Raphael grabs Cas’s collar and pulls his face toward the ground, forcing him to present. Dean feels sick. Raphael looks at Benny. “Now go fuck your Omega for me. Go on.”

Cas is wet, dripping, from watching Dean and Benny, but he hasn’t been touching himself. Benny presses two fingers into him, trying to open him up more.

“Now, Benny!” Raphael barks.

Dean clenches his fists – rage boiling between his ribs.

“Sorry, Castiel,” Benny says gently as he fucks into Cas. Dean doesn’t watch.

 

A few days after that and they’re all learning to avoid Raphael. Dean’s not sure what’s going on there, but they know something is different. Cas used to always trust Raphael, to like him. Now, he just seems like a threat, like a warden.

Still, if they all behave, he should leave them alone, right? And he has – and things have been okay, simple even. Cas is sitting in Benny’s lap as Dean approaches them, but he’s not sure they see him.

“Your heat is coming up.” Benny asks, nibbling on Cas’s neck.

Cas leans into it. “Yes, Alpha.”

Benny lays a large hand over Cas’s stomach. “I think it’s gonna be it this time.”

“Why?”

Benny shrugs. “Just got a feeling.”

“How scientific of you.” Cas rolls his eyes. Benny easily flips Cas over and presses his dick to Cas’s lips. “Alpha,” Cas mutters.

“Don’t back talk me next time.” Benny pushes Cas’s mouth down onto his dick, winking at him.

“What you talkin’ bout?” Dean asks. He’s not sure why because he heard every word. He just wants to know for sure. That they were really talking about what he thinks they were talking about.

“How Cas’s heat is coming up and I’m gonna breed him. He’s gonna make beautiful pups.” Benny leans back, stroking Cas’s hair. Cas’s head starts to bob up and down and Benny holds him in place. “No, Cas. Don’t wanna come; just hold me in your mouth.”

Cas looks up at Benny and narrows his eyes. Dean knows if Cas didn’t want to do this he and Benny have a way of communicating that. Dean only hopes that whoever his alpha is treats him the same.

“Yeah, yeah. You can complain about it to Dean later,” Benny says. All three of them sit in comfortable silence, Benny stroking Cas’s hair. Dean just watching them.

Suddenly, Benny pulls Cas off him and goes rigid.

“What?” Cas asks sleepily, his lips swollen.

Dean follows Benny’s gaze and sees what he sees.

“Alastair,” Dean mutters.

Benny stands up, his hands everywhere on Cas, trying to shield all of him. “Angel, get behind me.”

Cas stands up. On his feet. Dean hasn’t even seen him do that. “I am not afraid.”

Benny grabs Cas’s face. “Get behind me,” he growls.

“I could take him from you, you know. Your quiet little omega.” Alastair sneers, staring right at Dean and not Benny. It shocks fear through him. Did Alastair figure out what would really scare Dean? What his true weakness was?

“He’s claimed,” Benny says through grit teeth. Dean’s heart pounds in his ear. Alastair can’t take Cas. Those aren’t part of the rules. _What rules?_ Dean thinks. _What are the rules, really?_

“Ah, yes, but not mated. Benny’s too weak to manage that. A lead Alpha could demand him from you.”

The mating thing has never been entirely explained to Dean, but as far as he can tell, there must be some deep emotional and biological connection between the two to truly mate. It doesn’t have anything to do with power.

Benny doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t stop shielding Cas. Dean stands up too. Rage trembling across his skin.

“Stay. The. Fuck. Away. From. Cas,” he growls with a barely contained fury.

“Dean, don’t,” Benny barks.

Alastair sneers at Dean then leers at Cas. “Think I will. Yes, a Lead Alpha gets what he wants.”

“You won’t mate him,” Benny says.

Alistair laughs. “Don’t want to mate him. Just wanna use him. You’ll give him to me when I ask. I’ll fuck and knot him hard as I want then I’ll give him back to you.”

“No,” Benny shouts.

Dean can’t remember how to speak, what words are, why he would even need them. Everything inside Dean is so hot.

“Benny,” it’s Raphael. “Do what your lead Alpha says. Give him your Omega.”

Cas looks up at him, his eyes are wet with tears. “Dean.” His voice breaks.

That does it. That’s it. Dean can’t stop it anymore. He has no control over it. All Dean knows is aggression and rage and _protect, protect, protect, mine, mine, mine._

Dean lunges forward. His teeth sink into Alistair’s throat. Alistair shouts, gurgles. There is blood mixed in with the rage and pain and screaming.

“Holy – holy shit. Dean, stop. You’re gonna kill him. Dean, stop.”

Dean freezes. That’s Cas’s voice. Dean stops and looks toward him.

Electric pain seizes his limbs. He falls back hard. Hands, so many hands, drag him away, away from Cas, which is _wrong, wrong, wrong._

Cas charges for Dean, but Benny holds him back.

“Dean!!,” Cas shouts. “No. Mate! Mate!”


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter of the first part. Thank you all so much for your support and your comments and just for reading. I've enjoyed talking with all of you who've left comments. So thanks again! (This is sounding weirdly final. it's not at all. We're just getting started ;) )

Cold - Hard - Pain.

It’s dark and Dean’s shivering, but he can only think of one thing.

“Cas!” he shouts. “Where’s Cas?”

Dean grips the steel bars and shakes them uselessly. The bars are way too close for Dean to fit through but he tries anyway, pressing his face and shoulder into the gap.

Raphael’s there. Dean hadn’t noticed. The man lifts up a black bucket. “Shut up!” he snarls and tosses the contents of the water at Dean. Then, he disappears into shadow. Dean’s unsure if he is alone or not.

Ice cold water shocks his body. He stumbles back, further into his small cell.

It’s dark. Dean can’t see much of anything.

“Let me out of here!” he says, helplessly and, probably, to no one at all.

Raphael’s face is suddenly pressed up between the bars, the electrified weapon, held up in his hands, pointing at Dean. Dean jumps, startled.

“You’re lucky the Doc doesn’t euthanize you, you know that? There’s something wrong with you. I’ve known it since the first time I saw you!”

Raphael rakes the weapon over the metal bars, sending white hot sparks everywhere. He stops and turns away.

“No, don’t leave me here.” Dean shouts as Raphael’s footsteps fade.

Dean’s truly alone now and he knows it. He doesn’t know if they’ll ever come back or if he’ll die in this dark, damp cell alone. Die never seeing Cas again. His whole body tenses and he growls, unable to control it. What’s gonna happen to Cas? Dean wants to say he’ll stop it, somehow he’ll stop Alastair from ever touching Cas, but he can’t. Not from this cell, not if he’s dead – and Dean doesn’t have control over either one of those things anymore. Dean curls up in a corner that smells like piss and cries silently until the aching pain in his heart forces him to sleep.

Dean wakes up screaming.

Vaguely, in the back of his mind, he knows what’s happening and what needs to happen. He reaches for a fuzzy memory of Cas, waking and wailing, and the fear that seized through Dean as he tried to comfort his inconsolable friend. He didn’t understand it then. He understands it now.

Fire swallows him from the inside out. It rocks through him like nothing he’s ever felt before. It’s an itch low in his belly that he can’t scratch. Wetness is pooling out of him and he’s dizzy, dizzier than the serum ever made him.

Dean knows what he needs. He needs to be knotted, needs to present. Needs to be fucked.

“Fuck, knot, I need, I’m so hot, it hurts, fuck, it hurts. Please, someone please.” He’s screaming and he can’t stop the words from blending together into some helpless cry for anything, for everything.

Footsteps, he hears them, and they’re coming, they’re coming to put out the fire, to give Dean what he needs.

“Knot, please, help. Need, need,” he whimpers pitifully.

He can barely make it out, but it’s not Raphael. It’s Doc like Dean has never seen her before. Maybe it’s the heat twisting her features into something cold, hateful, but maybe it isn’t. Maybe he’s seeing her as she’s always been. “You should’ve thought about that before you attacked the lead alpha. You need to remember your place, omega.”

Dean’s waiting for it. Waiting for her to open the door and let in Alastair or some other nearly as aggressive alpha who will hurt him, knot him, tear him apart. Break him.

She doesn’t open the door. No alpha ever comes. This heat is Dean’s alone to endure.

Days blur together as the pain worsens and worsens. Dean tries to touch himself, jamming fingers inside him, but isn’t enough. He’s delirious, insane. Dean screams sometimes, cries other times. He begs all of the time. He presses his ass against the bars, presenting, desperately hoping that someone, anyone will come by and relieve the emptiness that’s going to swallow him alive.

He hallucinates.

He dreams of Benny mounting him from behind. His large alpha body, covering Dean almost entirely, pounding ruthlessly into Dean, while he begs for more, harder, knot me.

Then his dreams turn to nightmares.

Cas presents for him, for _Dean,_ and Dean, Dean takes him and it’s good, so good, but then Cas is dragged away from him. Dean can’t stop it, he can’t stop what he sees. First, it’s Benny, then it’s Alastair, then it’s just…just alphas – and finally, it’s Raphael, and Cas is crying and begging for Dean, begging Dean to make it stop and Dean can’t. He can’t stop it. He just has to watch it over and over and over-

So Dean wakes up screaming and because if he doesn’t, it’ll kill him, Dean tears another painful orgasm from his body. He’s weak, covered in his own slick. He’d be covered in other things too if Raphael didn’t come by and hose him down with freezing water every once in awhile.

It seems like it will never stop until it finally does.

The raging inferno inside him, becomes a small flicker, and then fades out completely. Dean’s passes out –and dreams of nothing but darkness.

 

 

“Dean? _Dean.”_ The voice echoes distantly and Dean desperately wants to cling to it, but it escapes him like a shadow. “Dean, I’m here.”

He catches it.

“Cas?” Dean coughs. Every part of him is weak, including his voice. “Shouldn’t be here.”

There’s a leaking amount of light. Dean’s not sure the source, but it illuminates Cas’s body, the peaks of his dark nipples, his large semi-erect cock, his lips. His _lips. God._ Even in his exhaustion, Dean is gut-punched by Cas’s beauty. It seems to grow every day, though Dean’s not sure how many days it’s been since he’s seen Cas. _A million_ , Dean thinks, _if Cas’s body were a calendar_.

“Do you not want me here?” Cas says fearfully.

Dean forces himself to his feet and meets Cas at the bars of his cell. “No, Cas. I – you’ll get in trouble,” he whispers.

“I don’t care.”

Dean’s hands wrap around the bars. Cas covers Dean’s with his own.

Cas furrows his brow. “What did they do to you?”

Dean looks down, a wave of shame crashing over him. He doesn’t want to relive this, to admit to how desperate he’s been. How at one time, when it felt like he was going to split apart, he begged for Alastair’s knot. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

Cas squeezes Dean’s hand. “No. You’re not.”

Dean swallows, he can’t say it, but he can whisper it against Cas’s fingers. “First heat. It’s over now.”

Cas tenses. “Who…knotted you?”

“No one.”

Cas’s other hand rests on Dean’s cheek. “Oh, Dean.”

“I’m fine, Cas.” Dean clears his throat. “What about you? Alastair?”

Cas shakes his head. “Don’t know. Haven’t seen him since.”

Dean’s not sure what to do with all the mixed feelings suddenly coursing through him. “Shit, shit, do you think I killed him?” Dean’s eyes meet Cas’s. They’re filled with light, with hope, with all the good in the universe. Alastair wanted to steal that from him. “I hope I did,” Dean growls.

“Don’t hope that,” Cas says softly.

Dean can’t pretend anymore. He needs to know. He can feel it all over his body, a tension, a shortening of breath, but mostly a feeling between his ribs that soars and sings and tells him that it’s worth it. Fighting is worth it, freedom is worth it.

“I heard you,” Dean whispers.

 _Mate,_ this word goes unspoken.

Cas’s eyes widen. “ _Dean._ I’m sorry. _”_

Dean covers the hand that touches his cheek with his own. “Did you? Did you… _mean_ it?”

Dean looks at Cas and sees Cas for Cas. Something tugs between them, something so real it wakes up every cell, every atom in Dean’s body.

If only these bars weren’t in the way, if only he could get real access to Cas. Something more than hands through cold bars. He can’t, and he slides his hands into Cas’s dark hair and pulls him flush against the bars. Their bodies touch where they can through the cell’s boundary. Dean’s heart pounds in his ears as he knows what he wants and what he wants is so, so human. It’s not something, he suddenly realizes, he’s seen anyone do here. Not something he’s thought about doing either, but now he wants it – and the way Cas is staring at him, makes Dean think he wants it too.

Dean kisses Cas.

The kiss jolts through Dean, brings him to life. His heart beats, his blood pumps, his lungs fill as if this is his first breath. It’s soft, then hard as Cas whimpers into his mouth and kisses back. They cling to each other, speaking with lips and tongue, but without words. Dean knows what he is in that moment. The lesson Doc meant to teach him is a distant, sad whisper, void of meaning.

Dean is not omega, he is not alpha. Dean is a man and he is in love.

“Cas,” Dean whispers against Cas’s mouth, “Run away with me.”

 

END PART I


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 has begun :) This will be the first chapter where we get a perspective other than Dean's (but just for a short part).

PART II: Laws of Variation

 

 

 

Dean is exhausted. The time he’s spent in that disgusting cell, in a lonely heat has taken a toll on his body. His mind, however, his determination, is stronger than it has been since he arrived here. Stronger, Dean thinks, than it has been in years, even beyond these walls.

Doc talks to him, but mostly to the medics and Raphael. Dean isn’t entirely interested it what she’s saying. None of this matters now. None of it.

“You weren’t successfully knotted so we can’t run the normal tests we run post heat, such as a pregnancy test, checks for damage etcetera. We’re going to give a dose of a different serum to help stabilize your body and make your next heat predictable. We’ll administer this serum until your next heat. It’s a fertility treatment.”

They’re just words. Empty words void of meaning. Dean’s mind is on escape. Everything else, everyone else, in the world disappears, but him and Cas and what they plan to do.

Except, he thinks he might hear the words, “Alastair is alive” somewhere in the mix of everything else.

 

. . .

 

“Learned your lesson yet, dog.” Raphael unleashes Dean and tosses him back into his enclosure. Dean doesn’t reply. “What? It doesn’t speak anymore.” Raphael slaps Dean hard across the face and Dean just takes it. Not because he’s broken, but because he isn’t, and he no longer has anything to prove.

Raphael steps back and stares Dean down. “What are you?”

Dean looks away, looks down at the concrete floor and how his hands are splayed open against it. He should answer quickly, he knows it, but he also must find a way to make the answer convincing, as if he means it in his blood, in his cells.

“Dean, I asked you a question. What are you?” Raphael hisses.

“Omega,” Dean whispers.

“What’s your purpose?”

Dean lets out a shaky breath. He’ll answer how he’s meant to answer, play the role he’s meant to play. For now. He feels conviction grip into his spine and encourage his lie to paint itself the color of truth. “To take the knot given to me, to be bred.”

Raphael smiles and pats Dean on the head. “Good boy,” he says and the leaves through the heavy door that slams shut behind him.

Dean takes a look around the enclosure he and Cas had once shared. Not much has changed, though Cas’s ball is gone – they’d allowed him to take it to his room with Benny. Still, the climbing structure stands (Dean never took to it). His and Cas’s beds are still there. The hay, the sliding glass door that probably has food in it that Dean should eat promptly – he’ll get to that, but first he looks over at the glass wall between him and the enclosure which contains the tiger, making Dean wonder for the first time in a long time, why exactly this place, which housed them, strange experimental humans, also housed a tiger. Is he the only animal here?Are there others? Are they important?

Escape would mean knowing every thing about this place and the people in it that he could.

The creature stretches out, stretching its back, fur prickling. A faint smile grows on Dean’s face as he observes its relaxed, unknowing nature.

“Hey, old buddy,” he says with a sigh.

Dean is walking toward the food slot when the concrete door squealed open again. A messy haired Cas appears, purple rimmed eyes, and unaccompanied.

“Cas?” Dean’s eyes widen in surprise. He wasn’t sure Cas would be allowed to visit him after what had happened, which would make planning their escape that much more difficult.

“Hello Dean,” Cas smiles, but winces as he does. “I came as soon as I could.”

Dean instinctively moves closer to him, pulled in by the gravity of their connection. “I’m glad you’re here.” Cas moves toward him as well, giving slightly to the left as he did.

“You’re limping,” Dean says, fear jolting his heart.

“I’m fine,” Cas replies, quickly sitting down, legs out in a V. Dean sat up on his knees. “We got carried away…Benny’s in a rut.”

Dean doesn’t particularly want to talk about Benny. He doesn’t know why, but he knows he really, really doesn’t. Cas is here and Dean can touch him. Dean leans in and kisses Cas, sighing at the enormous relief the feel of Cas’s lips can bring him.

Cas shrugs away from him. “Dean – we can’t.”

Dean seizes up, like lead being poured into his joints. “Oh, I thought…”

Cas cups his cheek, his face and eyes softening. “No, Dean. I want to. We just need to be careful.” He looks nervously around as if someone were watching. Dean has a strong feeling that the enclosures aren’t bugged. It isn’t easy in these days, nearly impossible actually to come by devices like radios and television – the internet – any of the things that allowed communication. Those were the first things the Demons took out during the war. He isn’t even entirely sure how they did it – some scientific mumbo jumbo his brother had tried to explain years ago. Still – it’s technically possible they’re listening in. It’s a risk they’d have to take if Dean and Cas want to escape this place, escape Doc and Alastair.

The name sends ice into Dean’s veins. “How did you even get permission to be here?” he asks Cas.

The tension is visible as it runs through Cas’s body. “It doesn’t matter.”

Dean’s heartbeat is something he can hear in his ears and feel in his hands. Not in the good way. “Cas? How?” he nearly shouts, though he doesn’t mean to.

“Dean!” Cas snaps, but then he softens and looks down and away. The realization comes over him like a wave. A wave laced with fear.

Dean swallows, finding the words difficult to voice. “Was Benny even in a rut?” He stares directly at Cas, who tenses his back and look back at Dean. Cas says nothing to imply either way, but Dean knows. He just knows. Lead Alpha’s get privilege’s. Lead Alpha’s have the ear of the Doc. Cas can come here at the permission of Doc and the Lead Alpha. Bile rises in Dean’s throat as the words _Alastair is alive_ ring in his head.

“Cas. _Cas,_ ”Dean’s voice breaks,“you shouldn’t have.”

“It was my only way to see you again,” Cas replies simply.

“He _hurt_ you. I’m gonna be sick. How could Benny let you?”

Cas erupts in rage. “Benny doesn’t decide what I do, Dean, and neither, for that matter, do you. I wanted to see you and I found a way.”

Dean takes deep breaths, trying to steady himself. Trying not to imagine what Alastair did to Cas, how he fucked him and knotted him and hurt him. How he took what wasn’t his, what is no one but Dean’s. “Cas.” Dean shakes his head, disbelieving.

Cas lays a gentle hand on Dean’s shoulder. “If we want to leave, we both have sacrifices we’re going to have to make. This is one of mine and you’ll have yours.”

Dean looks at Cas, his head turned slightly to the side, and stares. He sees something he hasn’t _really_ seen before. Cas, not Cas the omega, Cas who plays with balls and rolls around in the grass, but Cas who was a cryptographer, a son, maybe a brother, possibly a husband or a father. Dean’s head spins.

“What?” Cas asks.

“What’s your last name?”

“Excuse me?”

“Before this place – what was your last name?”

“Novak.” Cas smiles. “I think I have a way out of here.” Cas stands up. Dean does the same.

“Yeah, what’s that?” Dean asks.

Cas presses his lips together and casts his eyes down toward the floor past the climbing structure to the-

“Not the piss grates.”

Cas shrugs. “And the piss tunnels.”

Dean laughs. If they can figure out how to open the grates and navigate the tunnels, then maybe, maybe it would be possible. “Did I ever tell you I fucking hate you?”

Cas laughs and looks toward the door. “I have to go. What do you think? About the plan?”

Dean pauses and then replies. “We’ll need a way pass the guards.”

“You are the soldier between us. You can figure it out.”

Cas leans forward and seizes Dean’s lips again, winding his fingers in Dean’s hair. He pulls away for a moment then leans back in for a quick peck. Against Dean’s mouth, he says, “I’m sorry. I’ll be going into heat soon. It’s gonna be a few days.”

Dean bites down on the inside of his cheek. What Cas is telling him is that he is going to go have sex with someone else for a few days. Dean knows that’s the way it is, but it still stings.

“Yeah, right.”

Cas smiles sadly. “I’d give anything if it could be you.”

 

. . .

 

Benny paces in his and Cas’s enclosure. He tugs on the leaf of the fake tree in the corner and leans against the concrete wall that’s painted like a rainforest. Benny didn’t know for sure, but he always guessed this had once been home to a black leopard.

He presses his forehead against the glass, which is almost too hot, but feels good at the same time. There’s sun here in a way there’s sun nowhere else and he’ll take it. But there are other things on his mind as well.

Cas's heat should be soon and Benny's not even sure if Cas will spend it here. Cas has been coming and going a lot since Dean was taken away. Benny knows where Cas is going– to see Dean, to see Alastair to see Dean, – the thought of Alastair with Cas makes him cringe – but Benny won’t try to stop Cas. It’s not his place because those words Cas shouted are still burned in his memory. ( _Mate! Mate!)_ The violent way Dean tore at Alastair, with the strength to take down an alpha even Benny could no longer match. _  
_

Benny stands there, pushing away the memory and trying to catch his breath. He feels an ache between his ribs he hasn’t felt since Andrea, since – oh what did they call them here? – Demons. Since he was a demon.


	15. Chapter 15

“We need to find a way to communicate, without you having to come to my enclosure often,” Dean says as he places kisses on Cas’s neck around and over the collar. “You shouldn’t have to keep…going to Alastair and beyond that, either him or Doc are gonna get suspicious.”

Cas opens up his left hand. It had been fisted shut until now. There’s a piece of chalk in his palm. He kneels down and begins to draw symbols on the concrete.

“It’s a sort of mix between Latin, morse code and few other dead languages It’s easy to learn if you know how – almost no one knows how. It was used to communicate after the Demons took out our electronic means of communication.”

Dean watches Cas construct the code, eyes narrowing in focus, a memory coming back. He kneels down beside Cas.

“I’ve seen this. Bobby, me and my dad, my brother Sam were trapped in this town Pontiac, Illinois, I think. This was right after the whole state was practically leveled. The Demons had planted their flag, the whole place was crawling with ‘em. Some helicopters were supposed to fly in at night, pick us up, but they never came. We were trapped, barricaded into this old barn, when Bobby, who was our commanding officer, he noticed and he could read-“

Cas looks up at him. “This code,” he says almost dazedly.

“How did you know?”

Cas swallows. “I put them there.”

Dean’s head spins. He can hardly believe it as his mind flashes back to this time. To the fear he’d felt for the people he loved, for himself. How he truly never believed they’d get out of there alive.

“Cas- that code led us out, they saved our lives.”

Cas drew his shoulders back, his tilted slightly as he observed Dean. “You were one of The Four Hunters. Legends. You’re a Winchester.”

Dean hasn’t heard that term in a long time. He knows he’s not a legend. He knows he’s hurt more people than he’s ever saved. Dean, Sam, Bobby and Dean’s father, John, they’ve killed thousands, tens of thousands, of demons. There was a time during the war and before the plague where everyone knew their names. It’s not a time Dean likes to think about much.

Still, Cas is smiling at him, his eyes wet and shining.

“What?” Dean whispers.

Cas answers, “We’re gonna make it out of here.”

Dean learns most of the code in a few more visits. It is pretty simple, but only if you knew what you’re looking at. Cas even changes it up a little to make certain that no one else can read it. There’s a spot on the fence yard, obscured by some large shrubbery, where they will leave most of their communication from now on.

In the next few days, these are some of the messages they leave in chalk:

 

_Stole screwdriver from keeper for grates – C_

_Overhead Doc say files in room 16 – main floor. Blueprint maybe? – D_

_Only one person is on duty in the tunnels on Thursdays. Heat really soon. –C_

_I’ll keep an eye out for more. Hope it’s over soon. – D_

. . .

 

It’s a rainy day in the yard and also the first time Dean sees Benny since Dean attacked Alastair. He looks the same, except maybe his shoulders are a little more hunched, his eyes a bit more downcast.

“You look okay,” Benny says.

“Uh, yeah. I’m all right.” Dean scratches his head. He now feels anxious around Benny and he’s not even entirely sure why.

“That’s good.”

Dean looks around. “Where’s Cas?”

Benny frowns. “Not feelin’ well. Gets like this before his heat starts.”

“Right. He said that.”

A part of Dean thinks he should talk to Benny about what happened, but another part of him feels he doesn’t owe Benny anything. Doc forced Benny and Cas together. They don’t want or love each other. Their entire relationship is built on the sick nature of this place.

“I don’t want Cas going to Alastair,” Benny blurts.

“You think I do?” Dean doesn’t mean his voice to be as harsh as it is.

“I don’t know what you want, Dean.”

An angry heat rises inside Dean and he lashes out. “Him!”

Benny lets out a long breath. “You can’t…you can’t have him.”

“I _do_ have him,” Dean whispers.

“You’re an omega, Dean. You’re both omegas. What happens when one of you goes into heat?”

“An omega doesn’t need an alpha to survive a heat.”

“How do you know?” Benny scoffs.

“Because I’ve done it.”

Benny paused, just staring at Dean, and then shook his head. “Barrell of laughs, I bet?”

“It was – it was fine.” It wasn’t fine. It was torture. He’s asking Cas to subject himself to that. Dean feels a twinge of doubt about leaving.

“Right,” Benny huffs.

“You could take on Alastair become Lead Alpha again.

“Dean,” Benny’s voice is gentle. Warm and gruff like Dean remembered it. It stirrs something, but Dean knows it just omega instinct and shoves it away. “You still want me to claim you?”

“No,” Dean says without a thought. “I want Alastair to stop touching Cas.”

“Cas needs more than Alastair and Doc’s permission to come to you. He needs mine.”

“You’re gonna tell Cas what to do?”

“I’m gonna protect my omega. Even if that means I have to protect him from you.”

Benny storms off and Dean is just glad that he and Cas worked out that communication system. That way they can still plan their escape, but without drawing too much attention to themselves.

 

. . .

 

“You feeling any better?” Benny asks as he comes into his enclosure.

He doesn’t see Cas at first, but eventually he finds him huddled in the corner, about two feet away from a pile of vomit.

“I can get one of the keepers to clean this up.”

Cas is shaking. Instinctively, Benny rushes over to Cas, brushing his hair back from his sweaty forehead. “Bad one, huh?”

“It’s different,” Cas says.

Benny looks away. Maybe it’s because he’s mated with Dean and his body is craving Dean, craving both a knot and Dean, something it knows it can’t have.

“I feel…wrong,” Cas mutters.

“Wanna try my knot?”

Cas shakes his head. His omega’s denial drops in his stomach like a brick. “The heat hasn’t even started yet. I don’t think…I don’t know.”

Despite the situation, Benny can smell Cas. It’s not his normal sweet heat smell. It’s a little harder to place – probably a change brought on by being Dean’s mate. It shouldn’t smell so good to Benny though…maybe it’s because Dean… Benny shakes the thought as best he can.

“You’re hard, Benny.”

Cas hasn’t called him Alpha since what happened to Dean. He misses it. He glances between Cas’s legs to see his cock swollen and red.

“You too.”

Cas sniffles. “Do I need to present?”

“’Course not, but I think it might help. You might be right on the edge of your heat. Just need a push and you’ll feel better”

Cas slowly starts to move so he can present to Benny when he throws up again.

“Shit, baby.” Benny hasn’t called him that since either.

“I’m okay. You can still.” He tries pushing his ass up into position.

Benny shakes his head. “No. We’re going to see Doc.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the comments I've been getting! I love all your thoughts as things get more complicated and painful between our boys.

“Dean, why are you asking about this?” Charlie whispers. Her short red hair flips and flops in the vicious, cold wind. They’re the only two outside – plus a disgruntled looking keeper, sitting at one of the picnic tables and checking his watch every few minutes.

Dean shrugs, trying to appear as unaffected, as nonchalant, as possible. “Dunno. Just curious. I mean we live here. Don’t you want to know more about this place?”

Charlie lets out something between a snort and a laugh, rubbing the back of her neck, pushing her breasts up higher, her pink nipples hardening in the cold. Her collar is a happy bright yellow fabric. “I don’t think we’re really supposed to know more about it.”

Dean grins as charmingly as possible. “Oh, come on. Charlie, you never really struck me as much of a rule stickler.”

She rolls her eyes, but her lips begin to smile. He’s getting to her. “Because you’re not in enough trouble already.”

Dean smiles wider and Charlie sighs with a shake of her head and gives in.

“There’s a room. It’s near the mated enclosures. I’ve seen our keeper, Michael, come and go out of their with stacks of paperwork.”

“Is it locked with eyescan?” Dean asks.

“Yeah,” _that sucks,_ “but-“

“But what?”

“I might be able to override it.

Dean’s mouth falls open. Sometimes he feels like Charlie is just too awesome to be true. “You might? What?”

Her shoulders straighten and she looks distinctly proud of herself. “I’m really good with computers.”

“Guessing that’s an understatement, but seriously, Charlie, why? Why help me with this?”

If she gets caught helping Dean, Charlie will be in plenty of trouble with Doc, and if anyone knows the punishments Doc can dole out, it’s Dean. He doesn’t want Charlie anywhere near that.

She nudges his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. Been in here too long anyway, Dean. Don’t wanna lose my edge.”

 

. . .

 

Benny has been fighting with Cas for almost two hours and he’s getting nowhere. Cas won’t talk to him. He’s simply rolling his red ball back and forth between spread legs as if nothing has changed when everything has changed.

“Cas, baby, you need to eat,” Benny says for what seems like the hundredth time.

Cas just scratches behind his ear and ignores Benny.

Benny holds the plate of food in front of Cas. Little strips of turkey, a few broccoli florets and chunks of cantaloupe. “Just take a bite for me.”

Cas looks away from him like a child. Frustration builds in Benny, alongside worry, and he wants to punch a hole in the wall.

Benny takes a few deep breaths and then reaches for the grey jug of water and holds it to Cas’s lips. “A drink then? A little water.” Benny keeps his voice as gentle and smooth as possible. He doesn’t want to upset Cas if he doesn’t have to. Not now.

Cas’s eyes narrow and he slaps the jug of water from Benny’s hand. It clatters on the concrete, spilling everywhere.

“Cas!” Benny shouts. His left hand grips Cas’s chin and holds it steady and his right hand tugs gently on Cas’s collar.

Something hot and instinctual coils inside Benny and he’s nearly afraid of himself. “I’m your Alpha and you’re gonna open your mouth and I’m gonna feed you everything on your plate. That understood?”

Benny drops Cas’s chin and picks up a piece of cantaloupe and aims it at Cas’s mouth.

“Feed myself,” Cas says so quiet it’s nearly inaudible while holding out his hand.

Benny drops the piece of fruit on his omega’s palm. “Fine.” He stalks off to the other side of the enclosure and clenches his fists together, trying to steady his Alpha instinct – the one that makes him want to direct his omega, to see him fall in line, and allow himself to be taken care of the way he needs. Especially now. Now it’s almost unbearable.

After a few moments Benny says, “Doc said you need the vitamins in alpha come so when you’re done, come over here and suck me off.”

“Yes, Alpha,” Cas replies with his mouth full. He hasn’t heard the word ‘alpha’ on Cas’s lips in awhile. He wishes it brought him more comfort.

When Cas’s plate is empty, he crawls between Benny’s legs and sucks his cock. Benny strokes his hair and mutters _“Good omega”_ until he shoots his load down Cas’s throat.

After, Cas pillows his head on Benny’s thigh and falls asleep.

. . .

 

Charlie glances around the hall and then pushes the door open with the palm of her hand. “Hurry, Dean. You don’t have much time.” She tugs his arm and pulls him through the threshold. “Oh and Dorothy wanted me to relay to you that if you give away my part in this she’ll bite your dick off wear it like a necklace.”

Dean lets out a choked little laugh. “Sounds like she’d be a riot at parties.”

“Dean.” That’s Charlie’s serious voice.

He nods. “Yeah, okay. Noted.” Dean is truly thankful for Charlie. He knows everything she is risking helping him get in here and search for the blueprints. Not that she knows what he’s looking for or why he wants it.

Dean quietly shuts the door and then flicks on the light. An old incandescent bulb flickers on above his head, dimly lighting the small space. The room is lined with aluminum file cabinets with old-printed labels on their doors that listed things like Aa – Am.

Dean searches the alphabetical fillings for blueprints, structure, and architecture. Anywhere he thinks they’d be. Relief washes over him when finally finds them under floorplans.

It would be best if he hurried out of here, but curiosity gets the best of him. He slides open Wa – Wo and pulls out his own file. He searches for Cas’s too, under Novak, but there’s nothing there.

Dean hears mumbled voices in the hall, approaching the door.

“Oh, dammit. Shit.” Dean’s heart lodges in this throat and he ducks behind one of the cabinets, clutching the papers to his chest and praying they don’t come in.

His prayers are unanswered. The door squeaks open and Dean holds his breath.

“Think the rumors are true?” someone says as the open a squealing file cabinet drawer. “That it really happened?”

“Yeah, maybe,” says the other, who’s tapping a foot. “We’ll have to see how long it lasts.”

Dean has no idea what they’re talking about, but it makes him nervous. A few moments later, Dean breathes a sigh of relief when they leave without seeing him.

 

. . .

The door to Dean’s enclosure squeaks open and then slams shut. Dean scurries down from the climbing structure where he was just about to go over the floor plans. He assumes it’s Raphael and is absolutely shocked when he sees wild brown hair and blue eyes instead.

“Cas, what are you doing here?“ If Cas was here, his heat must already be over and maybe Benny had been all talk when he’d said he wouldn’t let Cas come anymore.

Without any warning, Cas is on him, crushing their mouths together, miles of naked skin against Dean’s. It’s perfection. “Don’t talk to me about Benny,” Cas growls in Dean’s ear, his breath humid and curling over Dean’s neck. “Don’t fucking say his name.”

It had been so long and so different. Dean allowed himself to forget the animosity that had been between Benny and Cas since before he’d even known either one of them.

Cas wrenches Dean’s mouth open with his tongue, licking across Dean’s teeth and gums. Dean presses his tongue back against Cas’s.

He pulls back just enough to moan “ _Cas”_ feeling the name like a blessing in every bone in his body.

Cas gasps for air as he backs up. His eyes are blown black, his mouth slick and swollen with Dean’s kisses. Red and lovely.

Cas attacks Dean again. Large, calloused hands going right to Dean’s neck. Fumbling and wild, Cas’s fingers trip over the spikes of Dean’s collar to the buckle.

“Get this stupid thing off,” Cas snaps. He pulls the buckle open and chucks the collar across the room, letting it clang on the concrete. Dean freezes and stares at his mate, suddenly noticing that Cas isn’t wearing his collar. Hasn’t been wearing it this whole time.

The thought burns between his legs and makes his cock swell and slick leak out of his ass, but his mind is somewhere else. “Kiss me,” Dean commands. Cas slides his hands into Dean’s hair and kisses him like easily-broken candy glass. His lips move from Dean’s down his chest, sucking on Dean’s nipples and peppering across the freckled planes of muscle. Cas lands on his knees and spins Dean so he’s bracing himself against the wall with his hands. Without much warning, a mouth is slurping up his thighs and then sucks on his entrance. Dean howls, desire like a drug he wants to overdose on. “Cas, what are you?” he groans through grit teeth.

Cas pushes a finger inside Dean and whimpers. “I wanna be inside you. Wanna be that close to you – wanna feel like a man again.” Cas slides another finger in alongside it and begins to scissor him open. Dean feels more slick slide out of him and he’s drooling from the scent of Cas’s slick. He wishes he could see it pooling beneath him.

“You are a man,” Dean manages.

Cas stands and turns Dean around and slides his cock under Dean’s balls. Dean hisses.

“Need it like this. Need you looking at me when I knot you.” Cas lifts Dean’s left leg and holds it up at an angle, exposing Dean’s hole to his gaze and the cold air of the enclosure.

 _Knot._ The word is like a punch to Dean’s chest, another and another to his stomach, his dick and his heart. _Knot._

Cas can’t knot Dean – not that that matter, but what matters is that they’re in this place, pumped with those weird serums, forced and affected and stripped of consent. Dean can’t breathe.

The tip of Cas’s cock is against Dean’s entrance and beginning to press. Dean shoves Cas away. He won’t ruin something so perfect, so special and sacred.

“Cas. Stop. What are you doing?”

Cas strains for breath, his shoulders hulking. “You want me to stop?” Cas’s stubble is soaked with Dean’s slick and glistens in the light.

“Yes.” Dean shoves back the desire because he knows what he wants, what he needs. What they both need.

The hurt on Cas’s face makes Dean feel like he’s being strangled. “Why?”

Dean moves closer to Cas again, touching his wrist where Cas’s pulse pounds. “We can’t do this here. Not me and you. Not when we’re so affected by the serums. I won’t…make love to you by their rules.” He strokes Cas’s sticky cheek with his fingers. “When we escape, you can spend the rest of your life inside me.”

Cas blinks a few times and gives a small almost imperceptible smile. “When we escape.”

“Yes.”

Cas sighs and kisses Dean once, soft and chaste. “Dean Winchester,” Cas says almost sadly.

“Castiel Novak,” Dean whispers back.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, it's been so long. I've had some personal stuff slowing down my fic writing. Here's a new chapter for you lovelies. Let me know what you think :) I really, really appreciate every single one of your comments!

_Did you find the blueprints – C_

_Yes, do you know which keepers are on duty on Thursday? – D_

_Uriah and Ezekiel. – C_

_You’ll need to be able to distract them that night – D_

_I’ve got a plan. Do you? - C_

_Just honing up my kickass skills. Ready for this? For leaving? – D_

_Yes, of course. We shouldn’t talk in person though. Might draw attention – C_

_Good idea – D_

It’s weird not talking to Cas anymore. Not hearing his voice, not being able to speak with him when they’re in the yard together or just be in close proximity. He doesn’t like how he feels whenever he glances over at Cas the way he isn’t supposed to and finds Cas on his knees with Benny’s cock in his mouth. Soon enough, Dean tells himself, soon enough he and Cas will leave this place and nobody else will be able to touch Cas ever again. Nobody but Dean.

He does wish that Cas could somehow deny Benny’s public attentions, but Dean isn’t stupid. Benny would know something was up if he did that, so mostly Dean just tries to ignore it. Tries to hang out with Charlie and Dorothy and do his best to stay as far away from the alphas who, though they haven’t directly tried to approach or mount him, do seem to watch him a fair amount of the time.

It’s Alastair he notices the most though, but Alastair isn’t just watching him. He’s also got his beady little eyes on Cas. It’s difficult to look at Alastair, at the scars that now mar his face and neck, scars Dean made, and not think of how he should’ve dug deeper into that skin, should’ve pushed it all the way and killed him because those hands have been on Castiel’s body, probably inside him, hurting him in ways it destroyed Dean to even think about. It wasn’t like when Benny touched Cas. Dean didn’t like that because he didn’t find it fair, but it didn’t make him sick or angry or violent. He is all of those things, painfully all of them, when he thinks about Alastair fucking Cas.

“Tore my knot out of him while it was still swollen,” Alastair’s voice is sickly sweet and playing in Dean’s ear.

Dean balls his hands into fists. They’re in the open, well not the open, open, but people can see them from here and he knows how Dean was punished, which is probably why Alastair isn’t afraid of more retaliation from Dean.

Alastair switches over to Dean’s other ear. “Made him call me by your name when I hurt him. Made him beg me, beg _you_ to stop.”

Bile rises in Dean’s his throat. The three keepers in the yard to move in closer to them, but it’s not one of the keepers that wedge themselves between Dean and Alastair, it’s Benny.

“Back off, Alastair,” Benny growls

“You’re telling your lead Alpha what to do?”

Benny leans in. “You’re still recovering from your last fight. Maybe you’d be able to take me, maybe you wouldn’t, but I’m gonna venture to guess you don’t want to try again.”

Benny’s never seemed bigger to Dean, never taller or more imposing. It makes Dean roll the word _Alpha_ back and forth in his mind because he’s starting to see what that word really means.

Alastair growls, glares at Dean, but then storms off. Dean’s heart is pounding and he’s not even sure what to say, why Benny would protect him after their last interaction. He should be hoping that Dean’s mated off to anyone, including Alastair.

One of Benny’s large hands falls on Dean’s shoulder. “You okay?”

Dean nods. “I’m fine. Uh, thank you.” He looks away and scratches his head. “I mean, thanks, but I don’t get it.”

“Get what?”

“Why you’d help me?”

Benny shakes his head and looks down with a small smile. “Don’t know, brother.” He takes a step closer to Dean and leans in, “Look there’s something I need to tell you. Should’ve told you before.”

“Benny,” Cas’s voice interrupts them.

They both look up at Cas.

“I’m not feeling well. Can we go inside?”

Dean grabs Benny’s arm. “What were you gonna say?”

“Benny, please. Come on,” Cas says. He does look a bit pale and Dean wants to ask what’s wrong, but bites his tongue.

“Later, brother. Sorry.” Benny pulls out of Dean’s grasp. He walks over to Cas and together they disappear under the faded awning that leads to the mated enclosures.

Dean stands there in the yard, misty air on his bare skin, and lets the guilt sink into him like a load of bricks. Benny’s never been anything but kind and protective to Dean. He’s done his best to try to protect both Dean and Cas. It isn’t his fault that he couldn’t mate them both like they planned. That’s on Alastair and Doc and the rules of this place. That’s the point though isn’t it? Dean’s done with this place. In a few days, he and Cas won’t be here anymore, won’t have to follow the rules. It hits Dean in that moment how this whole time they could’ve brought Benny into this plan. That Benny could easily come with him and Cas, be free of this place.

Dean lets the thought sit there, but as he does, his mind starts to race and his stomach starts to churn. Benny is Cas’s alpha. He has a knot, he has the biology that Cas’s biology, that Dean’s biology, will crave over the others, especially during a heat. As nice as Benny is, as much as Dean likes the guy, he’ll always come between Dean and Cas if he is around. Dean can’t accept that.

Dean walks back to his enclosure, feeling both guilty for his plan and resolved in it, in equal measure.

 

. . .

 

“What were you thinking?” Cas shouts at Benny once they’re alone in their enclosure with the door securely shut.

“Cas.”

“Doc told us. She said we can’t tell anyone. Not yet.”

“But Dean? Don’t you think he deserves to know?”

Cas gasps for air. Benny moves in closer to him, wanting to calm him. An anxiety attack is the last thing Cas needs right now.

“He doesn’t need to know.”

“He’s going to figure it out eventually, Cas. He cares about you, he needs to-“

“Needs to know what, Benny? Know I’m carrying another man’s child?”

 

. . .

 

Their plan has gone perfectly so far. It is late Thursday night. Dean has slipped into the tunnels, which smell as disgusting as he imagined they’d smell, used the blunt end of the screwdriver against Uriel and Ezekiel, a strong slam against their temples, knocking them out, and now Dean waits for Cas’s arrival at the fork in the tunnels. One way goes to the mated enclosures, the other a long and winding tunnel to a ladder that would lead them up and out to freedom.

Dean paces. His hands fidget over his bare neck. He’d taken off his collar and laid it on the floor of his enclosure. Dean is happy to have it off, but he isn’t used to the freedom of it after so long. The only time he’s had it off since coming here was when he and Cas had almost fucked and as soon as Cas had left, Dean had to put it back on.

Dean can hardly believe he will be free tonight. That he and Cas will be able to find some abandoned motel or house and, just hours from now, Dean will finally be with Cas in the way he’s been craving for so long. He’s not sure if Cas will be inside him or he will be inside Cas for their first time. Dean doesn’t care though. He just wants to feel whatever closeness he can to the man he loves.

Dean’s heart skips when he hears footsteps. For a moment, he’s afraid of it will be a keeper, someone to stop them from leaving, but it isn’t. It’s Cas. Dean rushes forward and kisses Cas on the mouth.

Cas braces for it, just letting Dean have access. Dean’s hands are in Cas’s hair and running down his sides. Cas’s hands stay balled into fists at his side. Dean backs up.

“What is it?” Dean whispers against Cas’s lips. God, he wants those lips everywhere on his body.

Cas steps back from Dean and just looks at him, really observes him, with a slight tilt of his head.

“We should get going.” Dean reaches out for Cas’s hand, but Cas doesn’t take it. Dean drops his arms.

“Cas, what’s going on?”

“There’s something I need to tell you-“

“Can’t it wait till we’re outside?”

Cas shakes his head slowly.

“Well, what is it?” Dean is starting to shake and he’s not entirely sure why.

“I’m…I can’t go with you.”

The blood drains out of Dean’s face. “What are you talking about?”

“There’s just…I can’t. I-“

Dean touches Cas’s face. “If you’re scared-“

“I’m not scared, Dean.”

“Then what is it?”

Cas blinks a few times, looking so deeply into Dean that he swears Cas can see his soul. “I’m an omega and so are you.”

“Those are just stupid designations this place gave us they’re not real.”

“They are real. They may be new but they’re real. Two omegas…it isn’t…it won’t work.”

Dean’s head spins. He can’t believe what he’s hearing. “Of course it will work. I love you, Cas.”

Cas freezes. Dean realizes that though he’s known his feelings for Cas for a long time, he’s never voiced them aloud.

“Dean. Please don’t say that.”

“Why not? It’s true. I love you and I don’t care that you’re an omega. It doesn’t matter.”

“What do you want me to say, Dean?” Cas growls.

“Say you love me, say you’ll go with me.”

Cas’s whole body tenses. Dean’s not sure Cas is even breathing. “I can’t. The more I thought about - I need a knot, I need an alpha, Dean. You can’t give me those things. So go. Leave this place. Go now – like we planned.”

Dean’s whole universe is shattering around him, leaving him nothing to stand on, no oxygen to breathe, no anything. “But Cas I love-“

“I don’t love you.” With that, Cas turns his back on Dean walks back down the tunnel toward the mated enclosures, his collar fastened tightly around his neck.

Dean slides down to the ground. He doesn’t care what he’s sitting in, nothing, nothing, nothing can be worse than the pain crushing down him, the pain of a future in that wasteland above him, a future without Cas. The words _I don’t love you_ hang around his neck tighter and heavier than any collar.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been awhile. From now on, I should be updating every Monday. This chapter is a bit thin on the plot side because I wanted to take stock of where are our three boys are emotionally. Next chapter, we will get a lot deeper into some plot stuff. Thanks for all your thoughts and comments! I love talking with you all!

Cas doesn’t talk to Benny anymore. He’s back to the way Benny remembers Cas from before he’d met Dean. Quiet, compliant, unobtrusive… it annoys Benny more than it should. It was, however, one of the reasons that Benny and Cas had never gotten along.

Doc had started whispering in Benny’s ear about Cas – wanting Benny to mate Cas – but Benny had been waiting, waiting, for the right person – the person he felt in his bones… and now, now he knows that’s just silly dream. The whole mating thing is just a fantasy. Because Cas is carrying his child and he cares for Cas, but he misses the Cas that would talk back to him, would tell him no, would tell him anything. And there’s something else, _someone_ else, he misses so much he wonders if it will break his bones. There had been no one after Andrea until there was…

Benny couldn’t bear to think about this anymore. Anything would be easier.

Cas still presents for Benny, still blows him, but he does it silently, like a duty, which in a way it is. Benny hates it.

It’s late afternoon and Benny’s napping in the enclosure when he smells sugary sweet slick on Cas. Cas walks over to him and presents, exposing his hole, still one of the prettiest things Benny has seen regardless of anything else.

Cas always does this at the same time each day. He has for about a week now.

“Come on, Cas. Go lay down. You don’t need to do this.”

Cas doesn’t respond – because he never fucking responds – and just scoots a bit closer to Benny, pushing his ass higher into the air.

“Cas, I said no!” Benny barks, shocked by the anger in his voice.

Cas freezes, turns to look at Benny, face fallen. He scurries to the other side of the enclosure legs tucked into his chest. Benny should feel worse about what he did. Somewhere, inside him, past all of his own personal hurt, he feels guilt for pushing away his omega. Benny should offer him something. Cas’s body, their baby growing inside him, will want to be close to Benny, but Benny can’t bring himself to do it. Maybe later, not now.

Now he’s going to shut his eyes and listen to his bones break.

 

. . .

 

Cas no longer feels like himself. He scratches at his skin when no one is looking, cuts into it with his nails, hoping nobody notices. The little droplets of blood remind him he’s real – that all of this is real. It’s hard for Cas to keep any food down, harder still to keep up on his regimen of alpha come. Benny hasn’t exactly been easy-going about it either. In recent days, he’s been cold, like he’s off grieving something private that Cas does not understand.

His hard lines of muscle have gone soft. He feels weaker, even more omega, than he did before, and until Dean, Cas had fulfilled the role of omega perfectly. He doesn’t want to talk, doesn’t know if he can because it makes him real. Makes the choice he made to send Dean away real. But how could he do anything else? Anything else but protect the man…the man he loves, the only person he’s ever loved, from a lifetime of this hell? Because Dean would stay with Cas and Cas knew it, and Cas, with the baby, with Benny’s baby, couldn’t leave. So there was no choice but to push Dean away, to give him the freedom nobody deserves more than him.

The worst part, Cas thinks, about all of this – the pregnancy – he means (he’s going to have to get used to thinking that word in his head as much as he wants to pretend it isn’t true) is that his body craves Benny’s body _all_ the time. It’s not like during a heat where a few fucks over the course of a few days will relieve that aching emptiness inside of him. No. It’s a constant thrum inside Cas that begs for Benny, begs for his knot and his come, and worse than that for his simple touch.

Cas hates his body. Hates it for changing, for betraying him, mostly he hates it for betraying his heart, for betraying Dean.

He hopes that wherever Dean is now – that the red skies of the war have cleared – that he’s looking up at the sun. That he’s free and that someday he’ll forgive Cas.

. . .

 

It had been the hesitation that did it. If Dean would’ve known what decision to make when Cas presented it to him, he wouldn’t be in the position he is in now. This, this _torture,_ would be happening to him. If he would’ve just left the way he and Cas had planned or gone back to his enclosure without hestiation, then he would not be here. What Dean would give to not be here.

Dean is strapped to cold metal again – like he was when he first arrived here. IVs are pumping the Omega serum, or something like it, but way stronger, into his veins. So dizzy, he feels like his blood pressure has dropped to 0/0 and the slightest breeze could blow him away. Blow him to pieces.

He’s been here for days he thinks though he has lost track of time. Doc comes and goes, as does Raphael and some of the medics. They refill the bags of liquid that empty inside him.

His face is pressed down on the hard surface because he no longer has the energy to keep it up. His cheeks, lips and nose are wet from his tears. He wasn’t even this desperate for relief during his heat. Over these last few days, Dean has seen some things. He’s seen what seems to be, though it’s fuzzy, Raphael slipping syringes full of clear liquid into his pockets. He’s heard Doc yelling on the phone in languages he doesn’t understand. Caught glimpses of orange and black fur. But over these few days since Cas threw him away, Dean has felt something fundamental shift inside him, like tectonic plates. He knows who he is – who he’s supposed to be – but he just can’t reach it anymore.

To hold on to any shred of reality, Dean repeats his name over and over and over under his breath. It’s barely enough.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been so long! This is a bit longer of a chapter to make up for it. (though I'm thinking I may need to change the title of this story to 'Cute boys Make Dumb Decisions' :P ) 
> 
> Hope you enjoy! Thanks for reading! Let me know your thoughts.

The yard has been calm this morning. Crawling bodies, playing and rutting and fucking, _just as it always is_ , Benny thinks. He used to enjoy it. The omega scents mixing in the fog to create one delicious concoction, but now the smell is too sweet and it’s, it’s missing some important element that Benny can’t identify.

Maybe that something is Cas because Cas never comes out here with Benny anymore. He stays holed away in their enclosure as much as possible, leaving only to go to the bathroom and for his appointments. His originally hard and flat abdomen, swollen just enough to make him look soft and rounded. Doc said he’d show much faster than a human woman would’ve and that he’d gain a bit more weight.

“Don’t look at me. I look…wrong,” Cas will mutter when he catches Benny’s eyes on him.

“You don’t. You look good, Cas. You do,” Benny will reply because it’s ture.

It’s a song on repeat in their enclosure. Benny understands Cas doesn’t feel like himself anymore, but Benny doesn’t get it. He doesn’t. Because Cas is damn miracle. The first pregnancy on earth in years. He’s doing exactly what he was created to do. He’s being bred, he’s carrying pups ( _my pups mine)._ He’s an omega. This is how he is meant to be, and when Cas has these pups, he will breed him with more pups because that’s what an alpha does with his omega, and that’s what Doc will require of him. Benny wishes Cas would stop fighting it…but maybe it isn’t the pregnancy, maybe it’s just Benny.

They used to hate each other. It was only a matter of time before they reverted back to that. Benny doesn’t know why he ever thought he could be different.

Now, all Benny wants to know is where Dean is, what happened to him. Cas swears he doesn’t know, and he probably doesn’t, and no will else will say. No one else will even recognize that he’s asking the question at all.

So Benny sits alone under the shade of trees, the grove where he’d first put his hands on Dean and watched him writhe in pleasure as he came. From here, he observes the Dean-less world around him.

Pre-omegas, giggle and hide from the alphas who leer at them, Alastair among them, and Benny’s heart aches. Things could’ve been so different if he hadn’t been as weak. He could’ve had two beautiful omegas to fuck, knot and breed. Back then, he’d had this daydream of finding Cas balls deep in Dean and both of them looking like they’d got their hand caught in the cookie jar, but Benny would just laugh and tell them to continue while he stroked himself watching his two pretty omegas fuck each other.

Raphael stands amidst the alphas, talking with them, leaning back against one of the tables, at Victor’s side. Raphael says something to Victor with a laugh, nudging at him with his shoulder, an alpha gesture, and Victor stiffens, backs up a bit and turns away from Raphael.

He’s not sure when Raphael started focusing his attention on the alphas…Benny’s been out of the loop for awhile, mostly staying inside with Cas. But something feels wrong about it.

He gets up from his spot under the trees and crosses the yard. Lisa has an omega now. He’s on the younger side, 19 or 20 maybe, and sits between her legs and she strokes back his hair, his lips in a small smile, like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be than wherever his alpha wants him. Benny feels a pang of loss. This is what he almost had with Cas, thought maybe he could have had, now he just has a shadow of this.

“Heya, Benny,” Lisa says with a smile. “Been awhile.”

“Yeah, I know. I usually stay inside with my omega.”

Lisa nods. “Has he not been feeling well?”

“No, he hasn’t.”

“I wonder if Dean’s sick too then. I haven’t seen him either and they’re very close.”

Benny likes the way Lisa says this. It’s not accusation that he couldn’t keep his omega satisfied like it is with the keepers and medics and doc…and most of the other alphas.

“Um, maybe.” Except Dean can’t be sick like Cas is, but maybe he is sick. It could be, but why would no one just say that?

“You know what’s going on with Raphael? Have ya noticed anything different about him?”

Lisa’s omega (Benny’s not sure of his name, Alfie maybe?) whines. Lisa strokes his hair and pulls the boy into her lap. He looks at Benny then whispers something in Lisa’s ear.

“Benny, do you mind?” She squeezes Alfie’s erection. “His heat is in a few days and he gets-“

“Nah, I understand. Do what you need.”

The female Alpha has always been an interesting phenomenon to Benny, which is silly because if male omegas can have uteruses and give birth then female alphas can have dicks.

They’re not visible all the time, only when the female alpha is aroused do they swell up, but Benny doesn’t see much of Lisa as Alfie sits down on her, leaking slick all over her soft bare thighs. It smells a savory sweet like honey and bacon. It’s not as good as Cas used to be and nowhere near as delicious as Dean was, but he still finds his mouth going dry.

Lisa glances down at Benny. Benny follows her gaze and he’d hardly noticed, but his dick was thick and swollen between his legs.

“Mated alphas usually don’t react like that to other omegas.”

Benny scratches at his neck. “’m not technically mated.”

Lisa groans slightly as she thrusts up into Alfie. “Oh, right. I forgot.”

Alfie whimpers then whispers in Lisa’s ear. “That’s okay with me, but you’ll have to ask.”

Alfie blushes. “I can fit you both if you’d like.” He buries his face back in Lisa’s shoulder. Benny’s eyes are wide. Alfie’s ass is lifted enough for Benny to see Lisa sliding in and out. He can hardly believe he heard that right.

Benny looks at Lisa.

She grins. “I’m not possessive, and he always had a crush on you. Just don’t knot him.”

Benny’s dick is throbbing. It’s just…it’s not a smell he’s smelled in awhile. Slick is different, more inviting, when it comes from actual _want_ for the other person that goes beyond physical need. He can smell that Alfie wants Lisa and also that he wants Benny. He’d be lying if he says he isn’t tempted.

He looks at Lisa for permission. She smiles and nods, jolting her hips up again. Benny movies behind Alfie, but he doesn’t thrust inside him. He gently pets his rim then whispers in Alfie’s ear, “You’re very beautiful, Alfie, but I shouldn’t. You let your alpha take care of you.”

He sighs, but just nods and Benny backs away from him.

“Can I ask you something, Lisa?” Benny is by Lisa’s side again.

She nods wordlessly.

“Have you noticed something strange about Raphael?”

Lisa narrows her eyes. “I mean…he does seem to be…he’s been hanging around the alpha’s more, I guess, and,” she whispers, “the pre-omegas. There’s a rumor, though it’s likely nothing more, that Raphael’s been…” her voice trails off.

Benny lowers his voice even more. “Raphael’s been doing what?”

Lisa looks around. There’s no one else near but she still seems nervous. “Fucking the pre-omegas.”

“What? Why?”

Lisa shrugs. “Dunno. It’s probably not even true.”

“Yeah, probably,” Benny says, but he’s not quite sure about that. Something is definitely off with that keeper.

Alfie shudders and come all over Lisa’s chest and she follows close behind, throwing her head back, and knotting inside her omega.

It’s enough to distract him from the commotion at the other end of the yard.

. . .

Dean shivers, not from cold but from fear. He doesn’t want to go outside. He wants to stay alone, stay safe, but when he heard the keeper (not Raphael, new keeper, Hannah) say “You’re going outside” in a commanding voice he had no choice but to obey. She leashed him up, but the minute they were outside she unhooked the leash and let him go.

He knows he smells because he can smell it on himself. It’s not particularly good smelling to him, but that’s because it’s his own. Dean’s not in heat, but he feels close to it, teetering on the edge, and every alpha in this yard is gonna know it too.

Dean hardly has time to adjust when he finds himself surrounded by the oaky, piney, fire scent of the alphas who are approaching him. There’s the red-headed one, Abaddon, he thinks. Victor, who approaches curiously, Gordon, who’s practically sprinting toward him. A hand grips his arm hard and tears Gordon to the ground.

Dean’s stomach drops. It’s Alastair.

Dean’s not stupid, despite how soft and weak his muscles feel, how tired, how much he knows he can’t fight back anymore. He knows he’s about to get mounted, knotted and claimed. Not in this life or the one before it, has Dean ever been fucked, and now he will be.

“Dean,” it’s Victor’s voice. It’s soft and kind. He’s mostly a stranger to Dean, but he doesn’t seem cruel. “Can you present for me?”

Dean’s shaking, but he’s trying to move into position because he knows that this is the best he’ll get. Someone who probably won’t hurt him.

“No,” it’s Alastair, but the no is directed at Victor. “Your lead alpha is claiming this omega.” He turns to Dean and grins salaciously at him. Dean wants to throw up.

Victor looks at Dean, mouths ‘I’m sorry’ then walks away, leaving Dean to Alastair.

“Present,” Alastair commands.

Every fiber in Dean’s body begs him to do as he is told, but he still won’t. He won’t. If Alastair wants to knot Dean, he’ll have to do it without Dean’s help.

“Present _now_.”

Dean shook his head.

Alastair roughly grabbed Dean’s chin. “Benny’s pretty omega used to present for me. He’d lift that little ass in the air and I would lay into him. Probably pretended he didn’t enjoy it for you, but he came nice and sweet on my knot every time.”

Dean weakly reached forward, trying in vain to hurt Alastair. Alastair just laughed, grabbed Dean’s spiked collar and pulled him onto his back.

“Gonna make you watch this. Watch me claim you. You better keep your eyes open.”

Dean wanted to resist, but Alastair easily spread Dean’s legs and pulled them up over Alastair’s hips. He could feel the tip of Alastair’s dick at his entrance when a blur rips him from between Dean’s legs and starts pounding the shit out of Alastair. It takes him a moment to recognize the blur is Benny.

“You don’t fucking touching him.” Benny punctuated each word with his fist against Alastair’s jaw. “He is not yours. He’s… _mine_.” Benny growled. Dean had never seen him like this – so animal, so alpha.

Everyone in the yard stares as Benny backs away. Alastair is passed out on the grass, alive but unconscious. Dean is in shock. Benny’s lead alpha again.

“Dean,” Benny comes to kneel in front of Dean. “Are you all right?”

Dean swallows and nods. Benny sighs and strokes Dean’s cheek with his knuckles. The touch is surprisingly comforting. “Where have you been, brother?”

Raphael stumbles up and a part of Dean wonders if he’s drunk, but that’s ridiculous. “Well, you won him,” he says to Benny. “Aren’t you gonna mount him?”

“He’s not something to be won.”

Raphael smirks. “Well, you, Benny, are the only alpha here with any track record.”

Dean has no idea what that means.

“You’re going to mount and knot him now or you’re not going to like the consequences to either one of you.”

Benny looks at Dean. “Dean. I didn’t want it to be like this…I don’t want it to be like…”

Dean does something he hasn’t done since he was alone and in heat. He presents. “It’s okay, Benny. Please. Do this.”

Benny settles behind Dean’s legs. He leans down and nuzzles at Dean’s spine, leaving a few licks there.

“I’m sorry,” Benny lines himself up with Dean’s entrance begins to press slowly. “We’ll do this better.” Dean shouts as he feels the burn and stretch of Benny’s huge dick as it slides into him completely. His whole body shudders and squeezes around Benny’s cock, wringing out pleasure for himself.

“God, Dean,” Benny growls. “You’re so tight.”

“I’m not tight. You’re just big.”

Benny chuckles. “Maybe you’re right. You okay?”

Dean nods.

“Good. I’m gonna fuck you proper now.”

Large hands grip Dean’s hips and pull him backwards and Benny slams forwards. It’s full and tight and slick is everywhere. It’s down Dean’s legs, in a pool beneath them.

“I’m gonna do so many things to you, brother. I’m gonna eat you out, gonna give you my dick to suck, knot you through all your heats, knot you when I want. You’re perfect like this. Perfect. Wanted this. Always wanted this.”

Dean just moans. He feels, wired, like burning hot coffee runs through his veins. A part of him feels guilty, but why, why should he? Cas doesn’t want him, doesn’t love him. It was Cas’s choice to walk away. Dean’s still pissed, and this is the way it’s supposed to be anyway: alpha and omega.

As the stretch of the knot starting to swell in his ass, Dean bares his neck. He doesn’t know where they instinct came from. It’s not something anyone told him to do, and he knows it’s not something Cas does for Benny, but he’s seen it on other omegas. He’s inviting Benny to give him a mating bite.

Benny gasps, leans forward and sinks his teeth into Dean’s neck. Dean yelps in pain, but Benny keeps sucking on the spot. He pulls back.

“Yes, yes. My mate,” Benny breathes in Dean’s ear and the knot locks in place. Dean shudders and shouts, the pleasure of coming with a knot in his ass almost too much to handle. Benny isn’t far behind him. The knot catches completely and Benny comes warm and hot into Dean’s ass with a groan. “Gonna breed you, fill you with my puppies, just like I did Cas,” he says as he keeps thrusting.

Dean can’t believe what he’s hearing. He can’t, it can’t possibly be true…

“How long?” Dean asks.

“We’ve known for about a month.”

Cas is pregnant. Cas knew he was pregnant when he tried to send Dean away…this is why he couldn’t go with Dean. Because of the pregnancy, not because he didn’t love Dean. And Dean, the fucking moron, just went ahead and mated Cas’s alpha.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been awhile. I've had some personal issues, but I'm glad to be able to post another chapter. Hope you all enjoy!

Dean kneels on the rubber pads on the stainless steel examining table. Medics fuss with some empty vials on the wall then leave through the door, leaving Dean alone with calm, collected Doc.

“Finally properly knotted. Bet you enjoyed that.” Doc presses her glove and lubed fingers against Dean’s rim. It stings and burns slightly; the claiming had been new and intense. “You’re a bit pink and swollen, Dean, which is just how you should be. This new serum seems to be doing its work.”

Dean wants to ask what the new serum was for, his mind feeling clear for the first time in awhile. But more than that he wants to ask about Cas, about Cas being pregnant with Benny’s baby.

“Of course he did,” comes Raphael’s voice. Dean twists his neck back to see the smirking keeper saunter into the room. Raphael runs his hands over one of the aluminum tables. Dean is 90% sure he grabs something from the surface and pockets it. When he gets to Dean, he slaps his ass and runs his bare hand between his cheeks. Dean shudders. “All omegas love to have their asses filled up,” Raphael says.

Doc adjusts the glasses on her nose and walks to face Dean. She lifts Dean’s chin with her ungloved hand. She looks over at Raphael rather than addressing Dean himself, “Shouldn’t be too long before his alpha breeds him if all goes right.”

It doesn’t really bother him. He’s just an omega; the Doc doesn’t need to directly speak to him. A voice in the back of his head replies, _that serum’s really doing a number on you._

“If this works, Dean, you and Castiel – you will be the start of a brand new world.” Doc hooks Dean up to new serum. A part of Dean still wants to resist, but there’s enough of the serum left inside him from last time to make him think better of it.

“Doc, I can finish up here if you want to go prepare,” Raphael says.

Doc nods, her face flickering and betraying a moment of worry, something he’s never seen on Doc’s face before. “Yes, yes, very good, Raphael. I have much to do before the Board arrives.”

The Board? It’s easy to forget that there’s a whole system behind this place. If there hadn’t been, they’d never get access to all the equipment they have here. They’d never been able to market this place to the people here.

Doc throws her glove in the trash, washes her hands and then leaves. He hardly sees her go because his vision has become too blurry from the serum.

Raphael comes up behind him. Again, he doesn’t bother to put gloves on and Dean leaks a lot of slick when this serum is being pumped into his body, so Raphael just slides three bare fingers into Dean’s ass and fucks them in and out. “You really are soft and tight,” he growls. “Beautiful too. Benny is a lucky alpha. Very lucky to have both you and Castiel as his omegas, especially now that you know your place so well.” The one thing Dean really hates about this serum is how easy it’s made him to come. Between the blurry sweetness of the serum and Raphael pressing rhythmically on his prostate, Dean comes hard all over the table.

Raphael slips out and walks over to leash him. He doesn’t bother to wash his hands. Instead, he just licks Dean’s slick off his fingers. _What the absolute hell?_

“You’ll have a new roommate for a few days before you move to the paired enclosures. Be sure to show him the ropes.”

Raphael pulls Dean off the counter onto the floor. As they walk from the lab room, Dean sees Raphael taking another vial, but this time he knows what it is because he gets a quick glimpse of the red label. It’s Alpha Serum. What would Raphael need with that?

 

When Dean is returned to his enclosure, he finds a younger, smaller guy huddled in Dean’s corner of the enclosure, his back to the tiger enclosure. Dean can’t see his face because he’s forehead is pressed to his knees and he’s trembling slightly.

“It’s, it’s okay…” Dean tries to keep his voice welcoming and steady. He remembers how angry and afraid he was when he first came here. “I’m Dean. What’s your name?”

“I’m K-kevin.Kevin shakes and sniffs hard. “He’s not coming back, is he?”

Dean looks back toward the shut door that Raphael just left from. “Uh, Raphael? Yeah, he comes back occasionally to let us out to the bathroom or take us to our appointments. He comes less often as you’ve been here longer.”

Dean lets out a tense breath, his feeling a warm, curling feeling in his belly he can’t quite place.

Kevin’s naked of course and huddled in the corner, his knobbly knees pulled into his chest. “No. I don’t want him coming back.”

Raphael’s not the greatest, but Kevin doesn’t even know him that well. Hasn’t been here long enough to hate him? And, in any case, Kevin’s an omega, they’ll give him the serum and then he’ll understand how to behave.

“Why?” Dean asks, blinking, his vision is still a bit blurry from the serum and it must also still be causing him to produce a lot of slick because damn.

“Because…because…”

To offer Kevin comfort, Dean lays a hand on his back. Kevin jumps and shouts, “No, no!”

Dean puts his hands up to show him he’s no threat, “Calm down.”

Kevin keeps shaking his head. “Don’t touch me! I don’t want…I don’t want that.”

“Whoa, pal. I’m not gonna do…” something sick sinks in Dean’s stomach. His voice comes out wary, “What did Raphael do to you?” Lisa’s words about Raphael and the pre-omegas come back to Dean hard.

Kevin draws his limbs in closer to his body, his face down. A surge of anger starts in Dean’s chest and is tempered by the omega serum. Maybe they gave him something new because he feels a bit feverish.

Kevin looks up at Dean, his brow drawn in. “That’s, that’s not part of what happens here, is it?”

Dean shakes his head. Fucking, knotting, mating – sometimes without permission – all happens here, but this seems even further out of line. “With Raphael? No. He’s – he’s – not one of us.”

“It was, it was weird.” Kevin’s eyes are on Dean wide and searching, but suddenly he shakes his head again. “I don’t want to talk about this…”

“You don’t have to.” Dean doesn’t want to push him and he’s also not certain he wants to hear.

“No. I need to know,” Kevin lets out a huff of air. “His, his um, when he finished in…inside me, his dick started to swell up, but then it went down and he got really pissed.”

Dean’s mouth drops open as he stares at Kevin. Raphael shouldn’t have a knot, or even a facsimile of one, and yet he does. That’s what Raphael has been doing with those vials, Dean realizes, he’s injecting himself. Raphael _wants_ to be an alpha.

. . .

 

 

Benny avoids coming back to his enclosure as long as he can, but eventually he has face Cas. Benny’s still ecstatic about finally having Dean beneath him, finally being able to bury himself inside that perfect body he’s craved since the moment he saw it. Still, Benny has another omega, a pregnant one at that, he’s responsible for.

With a steadying breath, Benny opens the door and steps inside. Cas is on the new mattress Doc gave him, stretched out on his back. He

“Look, baby. I need to talk to you.” Benny scratches at his beard, unable to look Castiel in the face. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees his omega sit up and pivot to give Benny his attention.

“Yes,” comes Cas’s quiet, submissive reply. It makes Benny feel even guiltier. He’s not entirely sure why. Benny has every right to have more than one omega, and they’d even agreed to this before, though it seemed like a life time ago.

Benny forces himself to look at Cas. “Something’s happened.”

“What? What’s wrong?” Cas tenses, his hand instinctively going to cover his belly.

Benny shakes his head. Where does he even begin? “Nothing’s wrong, exactly.”

Cas moves closer and sniffs, his eyes narrowing. “You smell different…”

“I’m lead alpha again.” Lead alpha’s do have a slightly different scent, but he knows that isn’t what Cas smells. He’s surprised that Cas doesn’t even seem to react to the news that Benny is lead alpha.

Cas just sniffs the air again. “No. That’s not it.” Cas’s hands ball into fists.

“Cas,” Benny says through shut teeth. Cas’s face and body is flushed and Benny can smell that it isn’t in arousal, but in anger.

“You smell like him, you smell like Dean.” Cas’s voice trembles. “He’s not…he’s not even here.”

“What are you talkin’ ‘bout of course he’s here.”

Cas keeps shaking his head, his hands gripping into his hair.

“Cas, what’s going on?”

Cas stands up. It’s the first time he’s done so that Benny has seen since Cas found out he was pregnant. “Why do you smell like him?”

Benny turns his back, he can’t face Cas like this. He feels like an asshole. “Alastair was going to claim him and I couldn’t let that happen.”

“This isn’t…this isn’t happening.”

“I’m sorry,” Benny whispers.

“No,” Cas barks and it’s loud and forceful enough to make Benny jump. “You’re not, so just don’t.”

During a pause of silence, Benny thinks about what Cas said – about Dean not being here. He didn’t ask…Benny needs to know what Cas is talking about. He opens his mouth to ask, but it cut off by the door opening and the overwhelming, sweet fried dough smell of Dean, his mate. Benny

“Earlier than Doc expected I know,” Raphael says, shoving Dean through the door. “But your omega’s in heat, thought you might want to take care of that.”

Dean’s eyes aren’t on Benny. They’re on Cas.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I haven't been feeling well and the updates have been really slow coming. This chapter is pretty short, but it's all I could do today. I hope it's better than nothing.

Dean shivers, despite the sheen of sweat that covers his body. He stands in an unfamiliar enclosure. Benny and Cas look back at him. He’s not entirely sure where to put his eyes, but they go instinctively to Cas. There’s a slight change in his form. It’s softer than it used to be and rounded if only slightly in his abdomen. Seeing Cas likes this makes Dean accept that this is it. This is real – Cas is pregnant, and he could become pregnant too.

At this time – because of the raging desire of his heat – he wants that. Dean wants to be filled, knotted and bred. What’s left of Dean’s logic tells him this isn’t what he really wants, that he won’t want it, at least not all of it, once the intensity of the heat has come and gone, but for now hormones cloud his judgment.

“Dean,” Cas’s voice is rough and wrecked. Dean has no warning before Cas is all the way across the enclosure and on Dean, backing him against the Plexiglass window, and rutting against him.

“Cas,” Dean mutters, his mind wild with need. Briefly Dean looks to his left to see Benny, with wide eyes and a hard cock.

Cas’s dick presses against his own and Cas wraps his hand around them. Dean shouts. Somewhere in the back of his mind he remembers a promise he made to himself and to Cas, about not doing this under these circumstances, about not doing this until they were free, but would they ever be free? Now, with Cas pregnant, no. Their life was laid about before them, a life of almost prison cells, of standing on a thin edge between human and beast, of truly belonging to neither world.

Dean’s legs are damp with slick. His knees shake, his mouth is dry, his tongue hot sandpaper. He needs to be filled. Dean pulls out of the vice grip that Cas uses to keep him pinned to the wall. He drops down and presents. Dean doesn’t know if Benny or Cas will take him, he doesn’t know which one he wants, the alpha with the knot, or the man he loves. Like the rest of his life, Dean will take what is given to him, let fate decide.

“He will need your knot,” Cas says, his voice filtered by disappointment.

Dean wants to open his mouth and say it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t need a knot, he just needs something, but he doesn’t have time because Benny is inside him. He yanks back on Dean’s hips, so they’re joined as closely and intensely as possible and then Benny just pounds. Hard. He’s fast and ruthless and animal. Not like the first time they were together. Benny doesn’t even say a word. He just mounts his mate and Dean, gasping for air, gives into it.

“Cas, Cas,” Dean finally forces. “Need you too. Please.”

Cas is quickly in front of Dean. Dean focuses on the lines of his legs, the less severe jut of Cas’s hips. They’ve spread and they’re fuller. Cas’s cock is the same though, long and red and dripping and Dean’s thirsty for it. Dean opens his mouth and is not disappointed. Cas presses the length of his erection against Dean’s tongue, thrusting it deeper, until breathing is more like wheezing. Dean reels from it.

Pleasure burns through his body, like whiskey set ablaze against his skin, his bones. Deep in the veins of blood that run through him. They’re rivers of want and need that make every inch of him sing and scream for more and more more. Benny and Cas give it to him, pounding from both sides, until he is so filled that tears stream down his cheeks and splash on the concrete.

The enclosure is nothing but a world of primal grunts cut off from the rest of existence. Dean doesn’t remember time before this, doesn’t dare to dream of a time after it, all he knows is the omega that’s been intricately weaved, like lace, into his DNA. He can’t speak, can’t think, can’t exist outside this moment. And then it hits – he’s coming in rapid shots onto the ground. A

dizzying headlong rush of pleasure unlike anything he even dreamed of before this moment. Reality slowly seeps back in as Cas grips his hair, painfully tight, and comes hard down Dean’s throat. Benny’s knot swells in Dean’s ass, it seems somehow bigger now, but wanted, so deeply wanted, like water. Iit’s stretching and tying them together as Benny shouts and comes hot and wet deep inside Dean.

Cas backs away from Dean and Benny twists so they’re both lying on their sides. Benny and Dean will be locked together for awhile, giving more opportunity for Benny to breed him as he bred Cas.

“This isn’t the way I wanted to see you again.” Dean lets out a slow breath.

Cas turns his back on Dean. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

Benny shifts behind Dean. “What’re you talkin’ bout Castiel?”

Cas’s gaze goes right to Dean. “I’m not – nothing. It’s nothing.”

Benny wraps his arms around Dean and uses his alpha strength to pull them both up, the knot tugs against Dean’s ass a bit painfully, but then he relaxes back against Benny’s chest as they move into a seated position. “It’s not nothing. What’s going on?” These words are said against Dean’s ear in a way that tells him those words are for him.

“It’s not easy to explain, man,” Dean says, feeling suddenly exposed and raw, as human as he’s felt since they started pumping him full with that new serum.

“What isn’t?” Benny’s voice is tense.

Cas sighs. “Now, isn’t the time. Right now, the priority is getting Dean through his heat. It seems especially intense for a heat, doesn’t it?”

“It does?” Dean asks. Dean’s only had one other heat and he hadn’t had anything to sate him that time. This feels much easier this time.

“Yeah, it does. But when it’s over, you have to tell me,” Benny says in his alpha voice, the one he uses rarely enough that it’s deep, commanding intonation has a lot more effect when he does.

“How long do I have before the next round?” Dean asks.

“My knot will go down in about an hour, and then you probably have one or two after that before we need to go again. Cas might need to set out the next round. He should rest.”

“I’m fine,” Cas barks. “I’m not a fragile piece of glass you need to protect. You’ve made it pretty clear, you don’t want all that much to do with me,” he says to Benny, “I don’t need you to care just because you fucked this baby into me and ruined everything!”

“Guys, stop. Stow your shit, okay? I don’t know what’s been going on, but we’re all stuck together now so maybe we could make the best of it. Because there’s really no getting out of this.” Those words are sticky and wrong on Dean’s tongue, deep in his heart, somewhere he can hardly touch, he still wants a way out of this. He wants a future as humans for all of them, but never has it seemed more impossible, more futile, than it does now. Dean leans back against Benny and looks up at Cas, realizing that the one thing that truly connects all of them, is that they are all deeply afraid that this – this is all there is to life. Fucking and knotting and breeding until there’s a million hands on your skin you’re more alone than you can possibly imagine.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of smut in this of the casdeanbenny variety :) hope you enjoy!

Dean falls asleep with Benny still inside him. He wakes up sweating, that deep, painful want of a heat curling low in his belly.

“Cas, Cas, please,” he mutters.

Cas is just sitting there, watching Dean. Benny is curled up snoring about a yard away.

“What do you need, Dean?” Cas asks. His voice is steady, but Dean’s eyes are drawn to the thick cock swelling between Cas’s legs.

“You,” Dean breathes.

“You’re in heat. You don’t need me, you need a knot.”

Dean’s temperature increases by the second. He wishes he could lie in an ice bath. “Don’t – don’t tell me what I need.”

“We can’t, Dean.” Cas’s face flushes red and the color travels under his brown collar and across his chest.

Dean doesn’t want to hear this – hear the same crap Cas told him in the tunnels. His body, his mind, all of him, in this moment, knows exactly what it wants, and what it wants is Castiel.

Dean walks over to Cas and presents for him. Cas inhales sharply. Dean glances over his shoulder at Cas. “Want you,” Dean says. “Inside me. Please.”

Slick drips down Dean’s legs, thick and sticky. Cas leans in. Dean prepares himself for Cas’s long, gorgeous dick to press inside him, but instead he feels stubble against his ass cheeks, a grumbling moan and a warm tongue licking across his rim.

Cas pulls away enough to say. “You taste delicious, Dean.”

Dean purrs, unable to stop himself. He’ll die of embarrassment about that one later. “Like – what do I taste like?”

He tasted himself once – out of pure academic curiosity and it had tasted about like come, but its texture was much thicker and slicker. When he’d eaten Cas’s that one time, it had been the most delicious thing he’d ever had against his tongue. Apple pie and hard cider and spiced pecans. It was fantastic – he wanted more of it soon.

Cas sucked on his rim and pulled away with a pop. “Like rosemary and cloves and lemons. Perfect. It’s perfect.”

“That’s not what he tastes like,” Benny says.

Dean startles he hadn’t even realized that Benny was awake. Cas pulls away from Dean’s ass and wipes his face.

“That’s exactly what he tastes like,” Cas says.

Benny walks to over them, leans down and licks some of Dean’s slick. “No. He tastes like sugar and coffee…” Benny tastes a little more, “fresh cream and beignets.”

“What?” Cas says. “Move over.”

Dean can feel Cas’s face between his ass cheeks again. “Lemon and rosemary, I swear.”

“You’re crazy,” Benny says.

Cas huffs. “I’m not. I know what Dean tastes like.”

“I’m trying again,” Benny says.

Dean sits straight up, hiding his ass from the two strange dudes that keep tasting it. “Would the both of you stop it?...Cas, are you wet?”

He swallows and blushes a little. “Yes, Dean.”

“Can I taste you?”

Cas nods. He’s shaking a little, but he presents for Dean. It’s as mind-shockingly beautiful as the first time, Dean saw it. Instead of wiping some away with his fingers like he did before, Dean leans in and licks Cas’s entrance slightly.

He moans. That flavor is – holy damn.

“Yep,” Dean says, “Apple pie, mostly.”

Benny narrows his eyes. “My turn.” He ducks down and just goes to town like he’s done this a hundred times. He probably has. Dean’s gets even more turned on, imagining how many times Benny just ate Cas out like this until he made Cas come from just his tongue.

“Hm…” Benny licks his lips.

“Well, what is it?” Dean asks.

“It’s a lot like Dean, but not as sweet. Like black coffee and milk.”

“This is really fucking weird,” Dean says.

Cas laughs and sits up. “I’m pretty sure the taste is determined by the taster not the tastee.”

Benny nods

“This has been a fun experiment and all, but like I’m starting to get a little sick over here. I could really use a good fuck.”

Benny strokes himself with one hand and slaps Dean’s ass with the other. “Hands and knees, gorgeous.”

As soon as Dean complies, Benny shoves in. Dean shouts, need curling hot in his stomach. Benny grabs Dean’s collar and holds onto it tight, sliding in and out of him, hard, deep and slow.

“So glad you’re my omega. So glad you’re mine now, sweetheart.”

Benny isn’t paying any mind to Cas, but Dean is. Cas isn’t moving to come closer to Dean or to touch himself. He’s simply watching, a puzzled look on his face, as Dean gives his ass to another man. Dean’s hardly paying attention to his own body when pleasure courses through him and he comes all over the floor.

“Got to” _thrust_ “fucking” _thrust_ “knot you”

And Benny comes inside him, locking them together again, Dean stretched and filled on Benny’s huge knot.

Benny kisses Dean’s mating bite. Benny bites into it again and just sort of suckles softly at the blood leaking out there while he strokes back Dean’s hair.

 

. . .

 

Benny’s looking over at Cas, who as usual, has no obvious expression on his face. He seems neither angry nor pleased at how the situation between the three of them has unfolded. Benny, however, could hardly be more excited.

This – this was what he’d been waiting for. His mate. Beautiful, responsive Dean with his spiked alpha collar who would just present for him – go all soft, sweet and omega for his touch. If it were up to Benny, which he wonders if it kind of is, he’d spend his whole life with his dick up Dean’s ass. Well, when it isn’t in Dean’s mouth.

 _God,_ he thinks, _I haven’t fucked my omega’s fantastic mouth yet._

Then, he suddenly remembers Cas. Poor, pregnant Cas, who is also his omega, who, whether his heart was in it or not, is still Benny’s responsibility.

Cas looks a bit droopy, a bit tired. It has been three days since Cas has eaten his come. He’s supposed to at least have some alpha come once a day, twice was ideal, and Cas hasn’t had a drop in three days.

Benny strokes himself. Dean yawns. “’M not ready yet.”

“I know, darlin’,” Benny says. “This one isn’t for you.”

Cas looks over at Benny, but then promptly looks away.

“Don’t be like that. You need it.” Benny keeps touching himself, imagining its Dean’s hands on him instead of his own. Cas just shakes his head.

Benny groans. He knows they’ve been having problems, but Cas’s insistence on not getting the nutrition the baby needs really pisses Benny off sometimes. This scary alpha part of himself wants to march over there and shove his dick into Cas’s mouth and make him take it, but that’s not Benny –that’s something _else_ and he won’t do it.

“Darlin’,” he says to Dean.

“Mm?” Dean mumbles all pretty and pink and sated.

“Lie on your back for me.”

Dean rolls over with a yawn. Benny stands to his feet over Dean and strokes his cock. He doesn’t need to think of much when he’s looking down at Dean. Smooth tan skin, perfect jawline, pretty green eyes and fuckable lips. Dean is the perfect picture of everything Benny wants, from his golden brown hair to his too-big-for-an-omega cock. Looking at Dean all spread out and sleepy for him, Benny comes embarrassingly quickly, coating Dean from dick to chin in stripes of come.

Benny squeezes his knot and makes a mental note to take Dean out to the yard covered in his come so everyone knows just who Dean belongs to.

“Eat, Cas,” Benny says.

“Excuse me?” Cas replies with a tilt of his head.

“Won’t suck my dick. Fine, but you’re gonna eat what you need and I figured this is the best way to give it to you.”

Cas starts to move towards Dean, but then hesitates.

“Come on, Cas,” Dean smiles. “If not, it’s just gonna dry all over me.”

 

. . .

 

Cas wants his tongue all over Dean. He doesn’t particularly want to eat Benny’s come – it’s a protestation of sorts, but seeing it presented to him like _that._ Well even Cas has to give Benny some credit. It’s absolutely irresistible.

Shaking with want, Cas settles between Dean’s legs and he takes him in. He does look lovely like this, all laid out and covered in come. Of course, Cas wishes it was his own, but he’ll take what he can get.

Cas leans down and licks a stripe of come off Dean’s chest. Dean arches his back and groans. Cas holds Dean’s hips down so he can really get at it. Benny tastes like salty sea air. He always has to Cas. It’s not a bad taste at all – it’s almost refreshing, especially served in a Dean Winchester glass.

He’s finished cleaning off Dean before he knows it and allows himself just to fall down and curl in Dean’s arms like they used to what seems like lifetimes ago.

Benny, for what it’s worth, doesn’t say anything. He just lets them hold each other like that.

. . .

Over the next days, Dean gets fucked. A lot. Benny takes him a few times a day. Riding him in his lap, on his hands and knees, presenting, even on his back looking up at Benny.

Cas gets involved but never fucks him. Cas runs a firm hand over his dick and jerks him off. He sucks Dean while Benny pounds into him from behind.

One time, Cas seems to get particularly out of control. He’s sweating and touching Dean all over and even skimming his hands over Benny. He’s panting and whimpering and all of a sudden, he just drops down and presents.

“Alpha,” he whines. “Alpha, please.” Dean wonders how long it’s been since Cas has had a knot.

Benny looks over at Dean, asking for permission to help Cas out this time. Dean nods, even though his stomach kind of sinks and he knows it isn’t fair.

Benny ruffles Dean’s hair softly and then pulls Cas gently onto his dick. “Missed this,” Benny breathes into Cas’s ear. “Missed you on my cock.”

Cas just nods.

When Dean’s heat finally floods out of him, he’s wrapped around Benny’s cock and his face is drenched in Cas’s come. It feels like…it’s nice…it feels like a receding tide.

Somehow Benny recognizes this, “There it is. You were so good for me, darling. Such a good omega.”

Dean cringes a little at the words now that his heat is over.

“So, what was it your were going to tell me after Dean’s heat?” Benny asks.

“We should wait until your knot goes down,” Cas says.

Benny plays gently with Dean’s soft cock. “Why would we need to do that?”

“I’m with, Cas. Let’s wait.”

“The waiting is making it worse,” Benny nearly growls, making Dean’s heart jolt, but maybe Benny is right. Now or never.

“Before Cas got pregnant, he and I…we were planning to – we’d found a way to-“ Dean looks at Cas.

“Benny, we had found a way out of here. We were leaving, escaping.”

Benny drops his hands away from Dean. “You were gonna leave. Why didn't you tell me? Did you even think about me”

“We did,” Dean says. “I did. I don’t know about Cas."

“I did.”

“And what?” Benny barks.

“I,” Dean admitted. “I wanted Cas for myself, and I wanted…I wanted myself for him.” It's just - it's time be honest. 

Benny doesn’t touch Dean again the rest of the night or say another word. He simply waits for his knot to go down just enough for him to pull out and leave Cas and Dean alone in the enclosure.

. . .

Benny feels sick. He heard what Dean said, what Cas said, and he knows enough to read between the lines. Dean doesn’t want him. Benny is just Dean’s way of being close to Cas. A means to an end.

 _Dean doesn’t want me,_ Benny thinks. _So why is_ _Dean the only thing I want?_


	23. Chapter 23

Benny has been gone for two days now. Dean and Cas haven’t had this kind of alone time since they lived together before. They should be taking advantage of it, enjoying the privacy, but neither one of them seems to feel like it.

Cas has been sleeping a lot, and feeling sick. Dean wants to be help him with it but Cas seems more interested in pretending it’s not actually happening. It’s probably not a good idea for Cas just to basically ignore being pregnant. Dean’s not sure though if it is his place to say anything. The baby isn’t his.

Still, it’s doing neither one of them any good sitting around this small enclosure not talking to each other and both feeling pretty damn guilty for what they did to Benny.

“I’m gonna go out in the yard,” Dean says. “Wanna come?”

Cas shakes his head. “No, but you go ahead.”

“I can stay here with you.”

Cas sighs and says quietly, “I could use time to myself.”

Dean tries not to take Cas’s denial as outright rejection, but it’s getting pretty hard. When Dean first met Cas, he hardly spoke. He seemed easy to make happy, sweet and playful. There’s not much, almost none, of that person left in the man huddled in the corner of the room.

“Uh, okay,” Dean muttered.

The nice thing about the mated enclosures was that they didn’t need permission to leave. They could come and go as they wanted, well to the yard, not to other enclosures, but still they were much more free in this area than they were in the unmated enclosures.

The sky looked a bit orange today and it sent a thrill of fear through Dean. Ever since he’d arrived here, the sky had been clear or covered by grey-white clouds, clean and natural. This, however, this appeared much more like how Dean remembered the sky before, from the war. Burning and ashy. At least, the air still smells clean. Dean isn’t sure he could handle it if air were suddenly to be laced again with smoke.

The yard itself though looks like it always does. Alphas and omegas rough housing and fucking and playing. Dean sees his last roommate, Kevin, sitting alone under a tree. Dean goes over to talk to him.

“Hey, man. You doing okay?” Dean asks.

Kevin sighs. “No.”

“Uh, yeah. It’s a bit of an adjustment.”

“A bit?” Kevin snorts. “Of an adjustment. You’ve got to be kidding me. A bit of an adjustment? It’s like somebody dropped a nuclear bomb into my life.”

Dean scratched around his collar. “Yeah.”

“And you know what the worst part is? Raphael.” Kevin whispered the name. “He’s the worst part of it, and there’s nothing I can do. Nothing anyone can do.” Kevin’s trying to look strong, that much is clear – and he _is_ strong. He has to be to survive this place, but Dean knows he’s trying to look, well, unaffected.

“You could tell Doc,” Dean says. “I doubt he’s supposed to be sampling the experiments.”

“You think I haven’t thought about that? You think I haven’t run through every scenario in my mind? What happened if I tell her and she doesn’t believe me – and she tells him? You think that will end well for me?”

“I don’t – I’m sorry. There’s more to it though, there’s something bigger going on that he’s clearly keeping secret from the Doc, and if we could prove it maybe we could get him removed.”

He shakes his head. “It’s not gonna work. It’s too big of a risk.”

“He’s…already, I mean how much worse can it get?”

“You’ve been here long enough to know that it can get worse. That it can get much worse than this, don’t act like it can’t.”

He’s right. There’s really no way of knowing who in this place can be trusted. Cas had always trusted Raphael and looked what happened there?

“I guess,” Kevin said. “We just have to find a way to survive – or not.”

“ _Kevin._ ”

Kevin shrugs. “What? Because the world in here is so great? Because the world out there is? What’s the point, Dean? What’s the point to any of it?”

“There is a point.” _There has to be._ “The point is…”

“What? Tell me, please. I’d love to know.”

“I…”

“Yeah, exactly.” Kevin stands and walks toward the unmated enclosures, leaving Dean alone to think about what Kevin had said. To think about all the things he doesn’t want to think about anymore.

Across the yard, near Lisa, Charlie and Dorothy, sits Benny, legs crossed and talking to the others. Dean’s stomach drops. It’s not really until this moment that Dean realizes all this time, these last few days, he’s been missing Benny. He’s always liked the guy. From the time they met, whatever form of relationship they had – Dean liked it. He liked the way it felt to have Benny inside him. He liked the security (though he hated to admit it) of the mating bite on his neck. Whatever issues they had in the past, Dean has to find a way to make it better.

Dean crosses the yard to Benny. Benny looks up at him, eyes narrowed.

“Uh, Benny,” Dean says. “Can I talk to you?”

Benny frowns. “Is something wrong with Cas?”

“No. I just – you’ve been gone.”

“Yes.”

Dean’s gaze drifts to the others that are sitting with Benny. They’re watching him intently as well. It makes Dean feel like he’s being x-rayed, and he doesn’t like it.

“You think we can talk alone?”

Benny sighs, but then nods and goes with Dean a few yards away near the grove of trees where Benny first made Dean come. The memory flashes through him. What Dean would give to go back to such a simple time?

“What is it?” Benny asks gruffly.

“Nothing. I mean everything is fine. It’s just that – we didn’t know where you went or when you were coming back and Cas-“

“Cas, what?”

“Cas needs your come, you know that.” Dean finds himself blushing at the words and he’s not even sure why.

Benny shakes his head. “Cas needs…yeah, right, of course. Cas needs.”

“You just…you can come back.”

Benny narrows his eyes. “You’re right, Dean. I will. I’ll come back. Later.”

A small, awkward smile twitches on Dean’s lips as he watches Benny walk away. It’s not perfect, Dean thinks, but he’s getting Benny to come back and that’s a – that’s a good step in a good direction.

 

. . .

 

Benny wants to punch his fist through something. Anything, really. A part of him wishes he weren’t already lead alpha just so he could beat up the lead alpha. Something, anything, to get his mind off what happened. To release some of the pressure that’s built up inside him like a geyser. And, truth be told, he’s sick of it. He’s sick of always having to take care of everyone else, always having to do everything right and make sure everyone is okay. Who’s going to make sure he’s okay? Who is going to give a shit about him?

As much as Benny doesn’t want to go back to the enclosure. Wishes he could just stay a little longer with Lisa and Alfie. He knows Dean is right. He at least has to take care of his own child.

So, late at night, Benny heads back into the enclosure. He’s surprised to find that Cas and Dean are not curled up together, but are sleeping a respectable distance apart on separate beds.

“B-Benny?” Cas yawns.

“Yeah.”

Cas sits up. “You’re back.”

“I am. I shouldn’t have left you like this, despite everything else, you’re carrying my child.”

“It’s okay, Benny. I’m fine – and you needed, you deserved, your space.”

Benny’s tired and lonely and pissed at Dean and broken-hearted and he just needs…”Cas, can I knot you?”

“Yes, alpha.” Cas curls on his side, like a half moon, and Benny lies down behind him. They used to do this all the time, before Cas got pregnant, and it was just the two of them. Cas would be all soft and sleepy, dozing in and out, and Benny would just slide inside him, fucking him gentle enough that if Cas wanted to, he could sleep through it, and he often did. Benny had always liked that after everything, Cas had learned to be that trusting of Benny, to let Benny fuck him while Cas slept.

 

. . .

 

Of all the things he and Benny used to do, this was probably his favorite. Strong arms that cradled him, held him close. He liked it – waking up to the feel of a dick inside him. He knew there were a few times that he slept all the way through it because he’d awake tender and in a puddle of come.

Cas is tired tonight, tired of fighting his alpha, of being angry at him, for things neither one of them have any control over. So Cas lets Benny ease into him with a sigh and Cas drifts off easily, completely soft, while Benny moves in and out of him slowly.

 

. . .

 

Dean is flat out confused. He’s not quite sure what’s going on, but Benny still won’t talk to him. He gets it – Benny’s pissed and he has a right to be, so that’s not what has Dean confused. What has Dean confused is that, Benny and Cas are getting along great.

This morning he woke up to them laughing about something and when Dean asked what it was, Cas said, “You just had to be there.”

Benny’s rut is coming up, so he has an exam this morning. Before he leaves, he pulls Cas’s mouth to his dick, fucks his lips and blows his load down Cas’s throat. Dean’s not sure he’ll ever get used to that sight no matter how many times he sees it.

“Be back later,” Benny says to Cas, making a distinct point to _not_ say it to Dean. Then, he leaves.

“Okay, what the hell is that?” Dean asks.

“What are you talking about?”

“You kidding? That domestic bliss porno I just watched.”

Cas licked a stray bit of Benny’s come off his lips. “We made up.”

“No shit.”

Cas scratches his head. “What’s the problem, Dean?”

“Why isn’t he mad at you?”

“He was mad at me.”

Dean points a finger at Cas. “But not nearly as mad at you as he’s been at me – on top of which, he’s still mad at me, but he’s not mad at you. I’m his mate.” The words come out before Dean can stop them. “I’m sorry.”

Cas tightens his jaw. “Yes, Dean, you’re his mate. I’m not his mate – and you know why? Because I don’t _want_ to be.”

“I know that, but it still doesn’t explain.”

“Are you really that blind, Dean?” Cas sits down and sighs.

“Benny is – I like Benny. We have a mutual respect for each other. He likes me, Dean, but you.”

“What? He just doesn’t like me now. So he can stay pissed at me forever?”

“Do you remember how it felt when I said I didn’t want to go with you? When I said I didn’t love you, that you weren’t enough for me? Remember how that felt?”

Even the memory makes Dean ill. “I’d rather not.”

“Were you angry?”

“Of course I was fucking angry. I loved you and broke my heart.” Dean’s stomach just drops. Oh, _oh._

“There it is.”

“Cas.”

“He’s not pissed at me anymore, Dean, because he’s not in love with me.”

 

. . .

 

Fire screams through his veins. He can’t breathe. All he wants to do is breathe, but he can’t. It hurts, it hurts so damn much, that he can’t take it. He wants it to stop _._ And they won’t listen, they want results, and they won’t listen. He’s telling them. Something is wrong. He cries and cries and cries, but the pain just keeps on coming – a fire that burns but never kills him – it’s always there now, all the time, raging inside his blood. A venom that consumes, that turns him into something _else._

Something lethal.


	24. Chapter 24

Dean presses his forehead to the enclosure glass, waiting. Cas is at his appointment and Benny is with him. Because he is pregnant with Benny’s child not because they are mated. They're not because Dean and Benny are mated. Does that mean Cas and Benny couldn't mate too? Dean doesn't know. He’s not sure it matters. He’s also not sure what to do about Benny because Dean’s not sure how he feels, not sure if he can trust anything he feels with that new serum pumping through his veins. But Benny is in love with him, and that's something he’ll have to navigate.

The door squeals open. Dean tenses but turns. It’s not Cas and Benny; he’s not sure if he’s disappointed.

“Doc?” Dean’s voice cracks. Except, that’s strange. She’s never come to the enclosures before.

“You need to come with me now.” Dark rings color under her eyes. She looks exhausted.

A leash dangles from her fingers.. He hasn't been leashed since mating Benny, but Dean goes to her and lets her clip the black leather leash to his collar. Doc pets his head and lets out a trembling breath.

“Behave for me, Dean. It's important. Not just for you but all of us, including and especially, Castiel.”

Dean nods, unsure how concerned he should be. At the same time, there’s little he won't do for Cas. He follows Doc past the exam rooms to a large wooden door hinged open on a doorstop. Dean’s never been this far down the hallway.

On hands and knees, Dean scuttles behind her inside. He’s kneeling in paneled room with an oval conference table. A man sits at the table. His hands are folded together, his mouth is grim – and his eyes, his left one at least, makes Dean shiver. It’s glossy and yellow, like a melted marble.

Doc bends down and whispers in Dean’s ear. “I’m so sorry.”

If Doc is sorry?? Dean’s stomach plummets. What the hell is he in for?

. . .

 

Cas sits rather comfortably on a padded blue exam chair – it’s a leap up from the cold exam tables he is used to. A medic tears open a foil package of gooey blue substance. For a moment, Cas thinks it’s lube. He normally gets poked and prodded up there in ways he’d never even thought possible during these exams. But instead of using the goo to open him up, the medic pulls around a sonogram. They’d heard the baby’s heartbeat before, but never actually seen it.

“This won’t be 100% certain, but this image should give us a good idea of the baby’s sex.”

Cas starts to shake; Benny lays a comforting hand on his shoulder. For a moment, Cas lets himself imagine Dean’s hand…Dean’s baby. But if he wanders too far down that road he will get lost.

The machine flickers on. Cas's breath stills. It doesn't look like much of anything, just a lot of grainy grey, until he squints – and there’s a foot an actual foot with actual toes. It’s…a variety of miracle.

“T-that’s a foot?” Cas says.

Benny’s mouth is just wide open. “It is.”

The medic nods. She’s beaming too. Cas understands why.. Of course, this matters to her – seeing the first new human in years. Though it makes Cas wonder why it was her not Doc at this occasion.

That thought doesn't last long because Cas is much more interested in his baby’s hand, a _hand_ now. He can’t believe it. He’s been angry about this whole pregnancy. He still is, but _damn._ The first new human – that’s a hell of a thing.

Grinning, the medic turns to Cas and Benny. “You’re having a baby girl.”

. . .

His mouth tastes like blood. It’s his own. There are bite marks on his arm from his own teeth, like a dentist’s impression. He thinks he may have been a dentist or known a dentist once, but he doesn't remember. It doesn’t matter because his mouth tastes like blood, and the clock tick-tock tick-tocks. He thinks may have been a clock once or known a clock once. It doesn't matter because his mouth tastes like blood…

. . .

 

On that conference table, Dean spreads his legs and lifts his ass. It’s been a long time since Dean felt self conscious but here, with that eye on him, he trembles and blushes.

“They’re pretty things, aren’t they?” then yellow-eyed man said. “Soft to the touch, curvier than a human male.” His dry hands trace lines across Dean’s skin. He wants to edge away from it, but he knows how to act.

“Are all omegas this gorgeous?” he asked.

Doc pets Dean’s hair. He leans into her touch. Somehow, under these circumstances, he finds it comforting.

“Dean was beautiful to begin with. The original serum didn’t work well on him, but when we switched to the newer stronger formula, Dean here just really blossomed.”

Dean wants to shrink away. It’s embarrassing to be talked about like you’re a naked renaissance painting.

He slips on a plastic glove from his briefcase. “Won’t need lube, correct?” he asks.

“No, Mr. Azazel. Just rub his rim or touch his dick snd he’ll slick up for you fast.”

Without pause, Mr. Azazel squeezes Dean’s dick, rubbing it until wetness seeps from his ass. He sniffs. “Is it supposed to smell like anything, Naomi?”

“Only to others like them.”

The man strokes Dean’s thighs and then runs his hand up between Dean’s ass cheeks. A finger plunges inside Dean and he instinctively tries to squirm away, but Doc (Naomi is her name apparently) tugs on his collar.

“How much?” the man asked.

“We’ll need an investment of at least six million. We have one pregnant omega at the moment, and hoping, with the new serum we will have more.”

Mr. Azazel laughs. “That’s not what I mean.”

“I’m sorry?”

“What you have going on here? It’s not sustainable or profitable. How many out of lets say 100 people are even responsive to the serum.”

Doc’s face is pale. “Five, ten maybe, but…”

“So out of those five, how many are omegas?”

Doc’s got her hand on Dean’s wrist, like she’s using it for support, for comfort. “Two or three.”

“And out of those two or three, how many become pregnant?”

Doc’s grip tightens, slides down to Dean’s hand. “Out of 1000 omegas spread across our three facilities we have had 4 pregnancies, excluding out current pregnant omega.”

Mr. Azazel’s eyes narrow and he smiles. “And out of those pregnancies, how many of the omegas and their offspring survived.”

Doc’s nails dig into Dean’s skin. She swallows, and her voice is low. “None.”

Dean goes completely rigid, heart cracking apart inside him. None? None have survived? Dean can’t move, can’t breathe. He’s the one that’s dying and this disgusting, yellow-eyed man is still fucking him with his fingers. Dean wants to tear them all apart, but what’s the point? It won’t save Cas.

“Why did you come here, Mr. Azazel?”

He grins. “To make you an offer. Ever since the war, the wealth gap in this country has grown even more. You have your sad impoverished nobodies that end up as your experiments, and then you have people like me.”

“This isn’t about money, this is about our only chance to save the species.”

“Your funding is gone, Naomi. You know that and I know that. It’s the only reason you’d come to a _demon_ for assistance.”

Now, Dean runs cold. All the demons should be dead. He’d been instrumental in killing them all.

“I’ll give you your funding,” he continues, “if you agree to my terms.”

“And they are?”

“Any alpha or omega that has not produced an heir within 6 months will be sold to me. It’s a great deal for you because then you’re getting your money back on your investment in the failed attempts as well as no longer having to feed and house them.”

What on earth would this guy want with them?

“Do you agree?” he asks, staring at Naomi. “Without me, it’s all gone.”

Naomi nods. “Okay, we have a deal.”

 _What?_ Doc just can’t sell them. She can’t!

“Oh, one other, non-negotiable item,” he nods to Dean, “him.”

“Dean?”

Mr. Azazel jams a fourth finger into Dean’s ass, and Dean squeals and falls face forward on the table. He rips his fingers out and then comes to face Dean.

“Remember me?” Mr. Azazel.

The man is heavily scarred, his eyes so strange and eerie, his voice dry and graveled. He looked so different that it took Dean a moment… “No. You can’t be.”

He grinned, that familiar, horrifying grin. “Why? Because you killed me?...Oh, Dean Winchester. I’m going to have so much fun with you.”

 

. . .

 

“Can you believe it?” Benny says. “A little girl. We’re going to have a little girl. Really puts things into perspective.”

Cas nods, and then looks up at Benny. “It’s going to be all right now, isn’t it? All three of us? We’re going to be all right.”

“Yeah, man. I think we are.”


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for how late this is. I got a second job recently, and I've also been sick so I'm just behind. With everything going on, I can't promise a chapter a week in anymore. I'll try my best to post asap, but I just don't want to disappoint anyone. (This goes for my bdsm fic too if any of you are reading that)
> 
> If everything goes as I planned, there are six more chapters after this.
> 
> Thanks again for your patience!

When Dean gets back to their enclosure, he finds Benny fucking Cas. No, that isn’t the right word. Benny and Cas are having sex – mating, even, maybe. Or something. Dean’s not sure exactly what’s happening but he knows that it’s more than sex.

Cas’s legs are wrapped around Benny’s waist, and Cas’s face is tucked into the space between Benny’s neck and shoulder. Their muscles ripple as they move together, bodies glistening with sweat. Dean’s eyes are drawn to where he can see Benny’s dick sliding slickly in and out of Cas’s ass. He can smell Cas’s apple pie slick in the air; it makes his mouth water and his dick harden. Both Benny and Cas are panting hard, neither one of them paying attention to Dean.

He can hear it in Cas’s breath, the hitch of it, he’s close, and with the speed he’s now moving, Benny can’t be far behind.

“Oh, god, Benny, yes!” Cas shouts as he comes. And then something happens that is like a steel-toed boot to Dean’s ribs. Cas kisses Benny, and Benny comes too. Dean can see the stupid fucking knot catch.

Dean is frozen. He can’t think, can’t process, what he’s seeing. Cas, who he loves, who is special to him in ways no person has ever been, sharing with Benny the one thing that had been theirs alone. That had bound them to their humanity.

A kiss.

A treacherous part of Dean wants to just run back to Azazel, regardless of what Doc ends up deciding. Maybe he’ll kill him, maybe this can all just end, fade to black, done.

“Cas?” Dean’s voice breaks without his consent. God, he never meant to speak.

Cas tugs out of the kiss, gasping for breath. “Dean? _Dean._ I – I didn’t see you.”

Suddenly, Dean is so filled with rage that he’s blinded by it. He’s angry at Doc and at Azazel and at Benny and at Cas, especially at Cas, because he didn’t think his heart could break again, but it can. Oh, hell, it really can.

Words find their way to his lips and what he wants to say is that’s he’s scared and hurt, that Doc might give him to a demon to torture, to touch, to use, or fuck or kill – or God knows what. That’s not what comes out though.

“It’s gonna kill you,” Dean says, staring straight ahead, head spinning. “That baby is going to kill you.”

 

. . .

 

Benny tenses all over, his body tightening like a wire, and he’s still knotted inside Cas.

“What did you say?” Cas growls. They’re the words said in the way he wanted to say them, though he couldn’t manage it. He’s still too focused on what Dean had just said _that baby’s gonna kill you._

“I was just with Doc. She was talking to an investor and she admitted that no omega has ever survived labor.”

Benny just shakes his head. The words coming out of Dean’s mouth hardly feel like real words at all. He can’t speak himself, but somehow, someway, Cas has control here. Cas is one of the strongest people Benny has ever known.

“What about the baby?”

“No,” Dean says.

Benny can feel the blood rushing from his head, can feel himself become dizzy. He flattens his palms against the concrete to try and keep steady. Dean, his mate, the man he loves, is standing there telling him he’s going to lose everything he has left.

“Why are you telling me this?” Cas asks, eyes turned toward Dean.

“Because,” Dean looks down, “it’s the truth. I thought you should know.”

Cas leans back, pressing down on Benny’s dick. His knot has been smaller since Cas has been pregnant, probably because their bodies know he can’t get pregnant again. He hisses with pain, but Cas is able to pull off Benny’s knot.

He stands up, actually stands to his feet, which is strange. Omegas never walk upright. Dean rises with Cas. They’re both eyeing each other, sizing each other up in a way much more familiar to alphas. Benny finds himself completely mesmerized by the sight, like it’s something he’s not certain he can take in entirely. He also feels that alpha need to protect ramping up inside him, only he’s not sure who to protect, or how he can protect all three of them. Dean, Cas and the baby.

“It doesn’t do me any good to know this, Dean. To know that I’m dying…that I have no chance…that not only am I going to die, but my daughter will never live. What good does it do me to know this?” Cas’s voice vacillates between angry and sad, up and down, and Benny is having trouble following the emotions it’s making him feel.

“I’m…you’re having a daughter?” Dean smiles, just a little, but it’s there.

Cas swallows and nods. “We are.”

Dean grabs onto his hair as his faces changes. He’s snapping back into himself. “God, Cas, I’m so, I’m sorry. Shit, fuck, what was I? I was so – I was pissed, what was I thinking?” Dean closes the feet between them and wraps his arms around Cas. At first, Cas doesn’t respond, but eventually his arms close around Dean, and they just cling onto each other. A few moments later, they pull apart just enough to lean their foreheads together.

“I’ll figure it out,” Cas says. “I’m not going to die and neither is my child.”

Dean turns out of Cas’s grasp and pivots towards Benny. Benny’s stomach does the drop thing it sometimes does when Dean looks at him, when he sees six feet of gorgeous freckled skin before him. The smoothness of it is broken only by the spiked black leather collar around his neck.

“I need to talk to you,” Dean says to Benny. He looks back toward Cas and Cas nods.

“I could use a minute alone anyway,” Cas replies. With that, Cas leaves the enclosure, and Benny feels suddenly nervous to be alone with Dean like this after all their tension.

They wait in a moment of silence before Benny can’t take it anymore and says, “What’d ya wanna talk about?”

Dean lets out a slow breath and fusses with his collar. “I’m sorry.”

Dean is still standing up, so Benny does too. “For what?”

“For not trying to get you out of here. For being selfish and petty and jealous. I’m sorry, man.”

Benny’s basically heard this before and he doesn’t want to hear it again. He’s not sure he can listen to Dean tell another story about how much he loves Cas, and how much he doesn’t even think about Benny.

“I can’t. Please stop.”

“Benny, listen.” Dean steps forward and Benny puts out his hand to block him.

“You don’t understand,” Benny says.

“I do.”

“I really don’t need this. I get it.”

Dean just shakes his head. “No, Benny. You fucking don’t.”

. . .

Dean’s not sure what compels him to do it. All he knows is that he needs to show Benny how he feels because Doc could give him to Azazel tomorrow. It might not be what he feels for Cas. It’s _not._ He’ll settle things with Cas later.But this, with Benny, it’s something, something real too, and he has to find a way to show it. Dean has never been good with words. He surges forward and crushes his mouth against Benny’s.

. . .

Benny draws into him immediately. He’s fucked and knotted Dean and Dean’s been so good for him, but this is different. This isn’t alpha and omega. This is two men telling each other something that words just can’t.

Somehow, some inexplicable way, Benny can read what Dean is saying when he slips his tongue between Benny’s lips and takes charge, when he nibbles and bites, when he just goddamn takes. He knows this language, and Dean is saying, “This is what I have left. Is it enough?”

“I love you, Dean,” Benny says, pulling back for air. He says it with total understanding that it will not be said back to him. He’s at peace with that.

Dean cradles Benny’s face, thumbs skidding over his cheekbones. “I know and I’m here. I’m right here.”

They kiss again, and it doesn’t stop there.

Dean backs Benny up against the wall, rutting against him. Benny’s never been touched this way, so roughly, so wildly. They’re still kissing, for God knows how long, and then Dean’s hand wraps around them both. With short little jerks, he jacks them hard.

“Yes, Dean. _Yes.”_ Benny draws in a deep breath and his senses are filled with Dean’s perfect scent. Every time he smells it he has to resist the urge to shove Dean to the ground and eat him out for hours. But he likes this, being so out of control.

“I’m so wet, Benny. It’s running down my fucking legs.”

Benny just makes an incoherent sound as Dean kisses him again and pins Benny’s wrists up over his head. When Dean kisses, he fucking devours.

“Fuck me.” The words come from somewhere and Benny’s not quite sure where until he feels their vibration again on his own lips. “Fuck me, Dean.”

Everything slows for a moment so it’s just their quiet but deep breaths. Dean runs a thumb over Benny’s lips, their eyes intensely focused on the other. “Present for me,” Dean whispers.

Benny may be an alpha, but for Dean the order isn’t at all hard to follow. He drops down to the ground and presents for Dean.

. . .

Cas hasn’t spent much time outside since he got pregnant, but he likes it, he wishes he hadn’t avoided it so much. The sky is a pretty egg blue, and the air smells fresh in a way Cas knows it shouldn’t, but he doesn’t care. Doesn’t want to remember the world before he was here. The fire, the pain, the war. He doesn’t much want to think of the future either – of what Dean told him.

Right now all Cas wants to do is breathe, to feel the air around him and the grass under his feet. He wants to shut his eyes and imagine a different world where Dean would smile at him from across a dinner table, where they’d make love in a soft bed, where they could grow old together. Cas wants to imagine those things because it’s the closest he can ever come to having them.

Cas leans back on his hands, looks up and lets the sun warm his face.

. . .

Benny’s so tight around Dean’s fingers. It’s been a long time since he has done this, opened somebody up. He forgot how much he likes the sounds, the little groans and whimpers.

“Dean that feels…”

“Shh, I know. It’s good to have something inside, isn’t it? Wish I could give you a knot.”

Benny lets out a little moan and buries his face into the crook of his arm.

“Rock back on my fingers, Benny. Give into it. It’s okay.”

Benny goes a little softer under Dean’s touch, and he makes little moves back toward Dean, his hole clenching.

Dean leans down and kisses the small of his back.

“You’re fucking hot like this, you know that. I’m so ready fuck you.”

. . .

It hurts too much.

Much too much.

He remembers things in flashes. Like he’s watching a movie of another person’s life. So much rage that it burns. He needs it to stop. He has to find a way to make it end.

Then, it hits him. A scent unlike any other he’s smelled before, but still, like instinct, he knows what the smell means.

Pregnant omega.

. . .

Benny’s not quite sure how he got here, only that he’s really glad he is. He can feel Dean behind him, feel for the first time in his life the press of a cock at his entrance as Dean mounts him. Benny goes rigid, his breath suddenly catching. He growls and snaps back at Dean, who jumps.

“S-sorry, I didn’t mean to-“ Benny’s damn alpha instincts don’t want him to be fucked. Well, fuck his instincts because he wants nothing more than Dean’s cock up his ass.

Dean strokes his hands down Benny’s sides. “You gotta relax or it’ll hurt.”

Benny swallows and nods because he wants this. God, he does. He focuses on the smell of Dean, on the love he feels burning between his ribs, and lets himself relax. Before he knows it, he’s being stretched wide on an omega’s dick.

“So damn tight, Benny.” Dean bites down on his shoulder and he finishes his long slide in. They wait, and Benny uses that moment to feel every inch of Dean, to let himself understand what’s happening right now. That he’s an alpha being fucked by an omega on one hand, and on another he’s just a man having sex with someone he loves. He is both things. He is okay with that.

“Can I move now?” Dean breathes into his ear, sounding wrecked.

“Yes, Dean. Fuck me.”

. . .

Cas doesn’t see it coming. He doesn’t have time to see it. A naked blur coming from somewhere to his right, snarling like a rabid animal. It hurls itself onto Cas with painful force. Cas screams as he’s knocked back onto the ground. He barely has a moment to register _Alastair_ before teeth clamp down on his throat.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're actually getting the chapter a day early. Surprise :) Hope you enjoy!

Cas can’t breathe. He can’t really think but he is acting on instinct. His arms shove at the alpha crushing down on him as he tries to keep Alastair’s weight off the baby. At first, Cas thinks, _he’s going to fuck me._ But Alastair isn’t hard; he’s not pressing his way in between Cas’s legs. He’s just biting down with his teeth. Just clawing into him with his nails.

He gets his arm free enough to punch at the side of Alastair’s head, but that just makes Alastair angrier, if that were even possible.

“Stop!” Cas shouts desperately. “Get off me!” He’s bucking and kicking and takes a bite out of Alastair’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Alastair mutters. The words don’t quite register at first, but Cas knows they’re real because they’re said again, “I’m sorry. This isn’t me.”

Hot blood oozes down Cas’s neck; he’s weak, but still able to adjust enough to look Alastair in the eye. “What?” his voice breaks.

“I was always a bastard,” he hisses. “But not like this. It hurts too much.” Cas is stunned. Are these words a cruel joke? They make no sense coming from this asshole’s mouth. “S-sorry. The only way.”

A gunshot cracks through the air. Alastair’s head snaps forward and he collapses onto Castiel. Too weak to shove him off, Cas just lies there until rough hands tears Alastair’s dead body off Cas.

It’s Raphael, smoking gun still in his hand. He turns to face the fearful crowd of alphas and omegas just watching. “I think you all need a _reminder_ of who exactly is in charge here,” he snapped. “You live if I want you to live, you die if I want you to die.” Raphael lifts his gun again and presses the trigger. A bullet shoots from the barrel and drives into the front of Alfie’s skull, knocking his small body back. His alpha, Lisa, catches him as she screams.

“If you can’t breed, none of you are worth a goddamn thing to me,” Raphael spat. Lisa was still screaming, clutching Alfie’s body as Cas slipped into unconsciousness.

. . .

“Okay,” Benny says, “What the hell is that?”

Benny’s right. The first time it happened Dean thought maybe, maybe, it could have been anything, but the second time, he knew what it was. That was a gun firing.

Benny and Dean hurry to their feet and rush out of the enclosure. Dean’s heart is pounding in his head. He’s worried; something just feels wrong and he’s not sure what. They’re running side by side when they get to the yard. They stop simultaneously.

Alistair is dead, bled out on the grass, his cold eyes even colder. Dean feels relief before he sees Lisa crouching over a different body. Tears are streaming down her face and landing on Alfie’s unresponsive one.

Two keepers approach her with a stretcher. Their hands pull at Alfie and she tries to hold onto him. She snarls and bites at one of the keepers. The other pulls out that metal rod and shocks her. They heft Alfie’s body onto the stretcher and roll him away.

Suddenly, Charlie comes sprinting across the grass toward them. “Cas,” she shouts. “He’s…Alastair…Cas’s hurt badly. He might be-“

 _Dead,_ Dean finishes her thought in his head, _He might be dead._

Dean feels like the earth just gave out beneath him, like tectonic plates shifted too far, and he is careening toward the center of the earth, ready to burn. A life without Cas isn’t much of a life at all.

“Why?” Benny asks. Dean can hear the brokenness, the fear, in his mate’s voice.

"Cas’s pregnant isn’t he?”

Dean thinks Benny nods, but Dean can’t tell because his mind is too busy spinning.

“I think…I don’t know…it seemed like it had something to do with that.”

 

. . .

 

“What the hell happened, Raphael?” Naomi snapped as Castiel’s bloodied body was wheeling toward her.

“I don’t know, Doc. Alastair…just went off.”

Naomi narrows her eyes. Alastair was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a lose cannon. He was methodical and controlled. This was totally reckless.

“The new alpha serum?” she thinks aloud.

“The alpha serum is fine,” Raphael barks and Naomi is taken back. He is just a keeper with no medical or scientific training at all. What would he know about whether or not a serum worked or had bad side effects?

The medics all surround Cas, and Naomi knows she had to snap into action. Cas needed to survive this. He may be her last chance; her only chance to prove her theory right; her only chance to save the world.

. . .

Dean and Benny wait several days before they hear one word about what’s happened to Cas. They’re the longest days of Dean’s life. A part of him keeps expecting Doc to show up, leash him and take him to Azazel. Give him away before he ever finds out what’s happened with Cas. Before Dean ever gets the chance to say that he forgives Cas, that he still loves him, has always loved him. Doc never comes until she does.

Dean and Benny stand side-by-side. Yes, _stand._ Doc doesn’t say anything about it.

“Castiel is recovering.”

Dean’s knees go weak and he barely manages to stay standing.

“The baby?” Benny asks.

Doc smiles. “The baby is fine.”

Dean’s hand cover his mouth. “Shit,” he breathes through his fingers. “Shit. I’m so – they’re okay?”

“Would you like to see him?”

“Yes,” they both respond immediately.

“One at a time though. Benny, you’re his alpha so you’ll go first. Hannah’s right outside the door, she’ll take you to him.” Benny nods and rushes through the door.

For a moment, Dean and Doc just stand their looking at each other. Dean kind of wants to jump up and down and scream for joy. Cas is okay. Cas is going to live – for now, at least. And that’s something.

“Doc?”

“Yes, Dean?”

He swallows. “Thank you…for saving Cas.”

She smiles sadly and stares down at her shoes. With a little huff, she looks back at up Dean. Doc opens her mouth like she wants to say something, but nothing comes out.

Dean’s stomach settles heavy again; the weight of reality holding him down. “But you can’t save me, can you?”

Doc shakes her head. “I’m sorry, Dean.”

Suddenly thoughts of dead Alfie, of what Kevin said, of how Raphael had started to act, him stealing serum, come back to Dean. “I need to tell you something.”

“What is it, Dean?”

“It’s about Raphael.”

. . .

When Cas sees Dean walk through the door, he starts to cry. He hasn’t cried at all since it happened, but now he’s just sobbing uncontrollably and he’s embarrassed enough to try and cover his face.

“I’m sorry,” Cas says.

Dean kneels down beside Cas, running a hand over his hair. “It’s okay, man. It’s fine.”

Brow furrowed, Dean leans down and kisses Cas. Once chastely and then he deepens it a little bit more.

“I love you, Dean,” Cas blurts the second Dean pulls away for air.

“What?”

“I love you so much and when I thought I was going to die. All I could think about was you, how much I was going to miss you, even in death. I know that I would.”

Dean kisses Cas forehead. “I love you too, Cas. Always, no matter what, no matter anything. I love you, okay? I forgive you and I love you.” Dean kneels back down beside Cas and takes his hand, bringing it to his lips.

“Hey, Dean?”

“Yeah.”

“I think…I think Alastair attacked me.”

Dean tilted his head. “He did…”

“No, I mean, I think he attacked me because he wanted Raphael to kill him. He apologized to me…while he was hurting me…he kept apologizing.”

Cas can’t fully process all his thoughts and feelings on the matter, but one thing he does know is that there is something else going on here, something dark, and he wants to know what it is. This place, which has always been strange and confining and at times scary, had never seemed downright dangerous before, out of control. But the way Raphael had shot Alfie for no reason...his baby is going to be born here (they’d both live. Cas had already decided it). He has to know the truth. Why people have to keep dying and being hurt…why, _just say it Cas,_ why people have to keep getting raped for this place?

“I’m going to figure it out. This whole place, all of it, I’m going to understand what’s going on – and then I’m going to tear it all to the ground.”

. . .

Dean gives Cas one last kiss before leaving him behind. It’s time. If he waits any longer, he knows he’ll never be able to go. Cas has no idea this is the last time he will see Dean because Dean can’t bear the idea of saying goodbye. Leaving, going with Azazel, means Doc gets the funding and support she needs. Maybe with better technology and better equipment, she’ll be able to save Cas and save his baby. Maybe he can give the man he loves that chance.

In the hallway outside the conference room, Doc leans forward and gives Dean a hug.

“Thank you,” she whispers in his ear. “I’ll keep him alive.”

She pulls back and Dean knows what to do. He drops to his knees and Doc, Naomi, leashes him. Together they walk through the door where Azazel is waiting.

Naomi hands the leash to Azazel and says, “We have a deal.”

 

END OF PART 2


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is some weird stuff in here. It's not all as it seems, but it's weird af I'm sorry. I hope you all can forgive and trust me. Also, warning for some pregnancy labor stuff with Cas if that freaks you out.

Part III: Natural Selection

**Five Months Later**

Dean yawns as the alarm clock beeps, pressing his face into the pillow. He slaps his hand down on the snooze button. It’s an old fashioned thing, but it works.

Wiping the sleep from his eyes, he slips out from between the cotton sheets. His bare feet hit the rug and he squishes his toes in the soft threads. Dean tugs off his sweat pants and grey t-shirt, leaving a trail behind him as he heads to the bathroom.

The bathroom is spacious; the walls and floors are mostly grey and blue stone. He flicks on the hot water in the shower and stands under the heated spray. The moisture slides off his skin as he breathes in the foggy air. Dean lets out a long groan as he relaxes his muscles. Showers like this are the best.

When he’s done, Dean puls on a pair of jeans and a red flannel shirt. He should get going. Azazel is probably waiting for him, and that man does not like to wait.

. . .

Cas is too big to do anything at this point. At least, that’s how it feels. He has an actual mattress and blankets now, which is something, but his stomach keeps him from ever feeling comfortable. His ankles are swollen, his blood pressure is up, and he’s constantly exhausted. Not to mention every day that passes could be the day he goes into labor and his and Benny’s baby is born. He wishes that could be a source of joy instead of fear. He wishes for a lot of things he can never have. Cas wishes he knew why Dean left without saying goodbye. He wishes he knew where Dean was. Wishes he could kiss him one last time.

“Hey, baby,” Benny’s familiar drawl comes from the other side of the enclosure. “You’re doing it again.”

Cas blinks a few times and only then becomes aware of his surroundings, aware of himself. He’s leaning his forehead against the glass and tears are streaming down his face. Cas sits back and wipes the wetness away from his raw cheeks.

“Oh, sorry.”

“It’s okay. Honestly, I’d rather more of this and less of-“

Anger snaps through Cas like a slap. “Less of what, Benny? Less searching for Dean?”

Benny frowns and rubs at the back of his neck. “It’s been five months. He left without us. Maybe it’s just time to accept that he wanted to go. That he didn’t-“

Cas glares at Benny. “Want to watch me die. Is that what you mean?”

Benny just shakes his head. He looks sad all the time now. “Maybe, Cas. I dunno.”

Cas stands to his feet. He’s gotten used to the way it feels, even with the extra weight from the pregnancy. “I’m not going to die.” He isn’t so sure about that. “I’m not giving up on Dean.” Cas is absolutely certain about that.

. . .

Grinning, Dean jumps off the second to last stair and calls out, “What’s for breakfast?”

He can hear his boyfriend’s voice coming from around the corner, most likely from the kitchen. “Donut’s, coffee, but there’s barely any left seeing as you can’t seem to get your ass up any earlier.”

“Oh, I get my ass up plenty.” Dean slides around the corner and through the kitchen door. He’s always liked the kitchen here. The stainless steel appliances, the grey marble countertops and gloss dark wood floors. Dean grabs a glazed donut from the kitchen table and shoves half of it into his mouth.

Azazel looks up from his newspaper. He’s older than Dean, but that’s not something Dean minds really. Dean just knows he loves him; he doesn’t really give much thought to why. No reason to…that he can think of.

“Come here,” Azazel growls. It sends a shiver through Dean somewhere between arousal and fear, but he ignores the latter. There’s nothing to fear here.

Dean eats the rest of the donut and then licks his lips. “You know what you are?”

Azazel grins, leaning in. “Yeah, what’s that?”

“An impatient little fucker.” Dean saunters over to Azazel with all the swagger he’s got and gets pulled down onto Azazel’s lap for his trouble. It’s an easy thing to do to lean down and kiss the smirk off his face.

Azazel’s fingers grip into Dean’s hair and hold him close as their mouths move in tandem, a practiced meeting of their lips. His touch trails down over Daen’s neck and shoulder and Dean gasps in pain. He really needs to get that bite checked.

“That still giving you trouble?” Azazel pecks Dean’s lips, tugging on the bottom one slightly.

“Yeah,” he says, moving his shoulder to relax the ache. “You’d think a raccoon bite would heal by now.”

“Well, maybe now you’ll listen to me when I tell you to stay out of the attic.”

Dean leans down and kisses Azazel again. “Hey, asshole. It was Christmas, and I needed the icicle lights. Giant fucking raccoons be damned.” And it was a _giant_ raccoon. Dean fell off the ladder and hit his head so he doesn’t remember much of the incident, but he does remember, the force of the creature and it’s deep strong bite.

Azazel runs a hand through Dean’s hair. “I love you.”

Dean grinds his ass down on Azazel’s clothed cock. “Yeah, then show me.”

. . .

Over the last months, Cas has made a surprising amount of progress in the case of what happened to Dean Winchester. Some of it he shares with Benny and most of it he keeps to himself. It’s just safer that way, if he’s the only one that holds all the cards.

He’s gotten help from a good number of people. Charlie, Dorothy, Lisa, Kevin, even a keeper named Hannah, who seems to have really taken to him. Cas knows that Dean met with Doc and one of the board members not long before he left. Cas knows that board member is dangerous. Cas knows Dean told Doc something about Raphael, and that Dean, on the day he disappeared, was seen by Hannah in a hallway where alphas and omegas are not permitted. Cas knows Dean had a reason to leave, what he doesn’t know is why? Was it forced? Was it a choice?

Cas is picking off pieces of his chicken breast and eating it as he thinks about all this. About what he’s found out, about what more he needs to do if he wants to get out of here and get to Dean. Benny once mentioned that Dean could be dead. Cas punched him in the jaw. He still doesn’t feel bad about it because Dean is _not_ dead. Dean is out there and Cas is going to find him.

Cas groans as he moves on his bed. He’s had this weird heavy pain in his back all day. Adjusting his position gives him momentary relief but eventually the pain comes back in just a little bit worse than before.

“Hey, Benny?”

“Yeah, Cas?”

“Can you help me up, I need to pee.”

In just moments, Benny’s by his side, helping Cas to his feet. It takes a moment to register what’s happening, but suddenly his legs are soaked in a thin liquid.

“What the fuck?” Benny keeps his hand on Cas, but tries to stand back as the clear substance just pours and pours from Cas. _How much could possibly be in there_ , he thinks, _surely that’s it._ But then it’s just a little bit more and it’s done.

…the pain he’s been feeling all day comes back to him. It wasn’t just an uncomfortable position. Those were contractions.

“Benny, my water just broke.”

“No, shit.”

. . .

Dean’s lying in bed in a pair of sweatpants. He can’t stand to be naked for long though he’s not sure why. Azazel’s reading a book by the light of his lamp and Dean’s just really ready to sleep again.

“Did you take your medicine?” Azazel asks.

Dean sighs. “No.”

“It’s really important that you always take it.”

Dean frowns. “Says who.”

“Says me, says your doctor.” Azazel hands Dean the glass of water he’d poured for himself. “Come on, sweetheart.”

Dean rolls his eyes and pulls out a little white pill from the Sunday section of his pill box. “I don’t like the way they make me feel,” Dean protests but he swallows the medication anyway.

_There’s a room. It’s concrete and dark. He’s strapped to a table. There are IVs in both arms. Everything hurts. He’s got a tube in his mouth and going down his throat, so he can’t scream, but if he could he’d scream for Cas. Cas, Cas, Cas, but he can’t. A man leans over him. A man with yellow eyes and a scalpel in his hands._

_He hates this man._

_He won’t remember any of this._

“All right, now, Dean,” Azazel says softly. “Lets go to sleep.”

Dean relaxes easily and when he falls asleep he dreams the same dream he always does. He never remembers all the details just that there is an angel who wants to save him (save him from what Dean doesn't know). The angel has blue eyes and his name is Castiel. He should tell Azazel about this dream, but for some reason, he never does.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so sorry it's been so long since I've posted. I feel so bad about it :/ I'm hoping I'll still update on Monday as well especially because this isn't that long, and there's a bit of a cliffhanger (surprise, surprise). Anyway, thank so much for being patient. Y'all are the best. Also, since I'm running short on time these days there may be more typos than usual, but I can't see typos in my own writing until at least a day after I've written and I don't like keeping you waiting. So let me know. And onto the story!

Benny is pretty sure that this is what having a heart attack feels like. He keeps grabbing at his wrist to make sure he can still feel his pulse. Logically, Benny knows that if he can check his pulse, his heart is still beating, but he checks it anyway. Maybe it just gives him something to do.

He paces in his enclosure. He tried to be in the room with Cas but Doc had said no. He didn’t take no for answer so the keepers had to zap him and drag him away. Benny doesn’t get it, every alpha instinct inside him, every _human_ instinct inside him is telling him he needs to be with Cas right now. Needs to protect Cas and their pup, their little girl pup. It’s killing him to wait like this.

A geyser of anger erupts inside Benny and slams his fist against the Plexiglas. It cracks. It fucking cracks and he looks at his hand. It’s bleeding. He probably broke a finger doing it, but he doesn’t care. Why would he care when all odds and precedents said Cas and their baby were going to die?

Benny just wants to sob because he’s going to be alone, so damn alone. No Cas, no baby, no baby _oh god,_ and no mate. Dean. Ever since Dean left he’s had a hole in his chest that sometimes feels bigger than he is. With Cas pregnant and grieving and endlessly fighting, Benny never went to Cas with how he was feeling. He kept it all bottled up inside him. His mate had abandoned him. Again.

Everyone always abandoned him. Andrea had abandoned him too, all those years ago. Right now, it’s the last thing he wants to think about so he shoves it deep under everything else and hopes to God it suffocates there.

 

. . .

 

_Cas lies in a field of grass. He remembers this place from when he was a child. The weather always seemed mild here, just the right ratio of sun to clouds. It’s just like that today. The wind is soft and rustles the slightly overgrown blades of soft green grass. Big wild oaks surround the open field, moist and green with tree trunks even as an adult Cas couldn’t wrap his arms all the way around._

_In the distant, a brook babbles. It’s a soft, soothing sound that makes him feel so relaxed, so totally a peace. He is content._

_Cas glances to his side and realizes he is not alone. This surprises him because only a moment ago. He swears he had been. When he sees, truly sees, who lies beside him. Cas no longer feels content. He feels happy._

_When was the last time he felt happy before this? It’s too long to remember._

_“Dean,” Cas breathes softly._

_Dean turns his face toward Cas. He looks angelic here, light and soft, in the sun. He’s wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. Cas finds it strangely intimate not to see the man naked. Cas looks down at himself. He’s not naked either. He’s wearing what he always used to wear to work: suit, tie, trenchcoat._

_“I’ve missed you, Cas,” Dean leans over and closes the space between them, kissing Cas deeply. A tongue presses at the seam of Cas’s lips and he lets Dean inside. Lets him map the inside of his mouth with that practiced tongue. Dean rolls over on top of Cas, pressing into him from above. Cas immediately feels Dean’s erection and rolls his hips into it. It’s such a relief to be with him like this. Like men are. Like men in love._

_That’s when realization dawns on him. He isn’t leaking. He’s not wet. He feels different. He’s not omega._

_Cas could almost scream with joy. He’s human again. He think they both are. The most natural thing in the world to do now is kiss Dean so he does. Their mouths are like puzzle pieces slotting together. It’s easy and perfect. This is where and how he wants to spend forever if he can._

_“I love you,” Dean says against Cas’s mouth._

_“Love you too,” Cas replies. The words come so easily to him in this moment._

_Cas leans up to kiss Dean again, but he can’t quite reach him for some reason. The peace all around him gives way to a sudden and horrible shock of pain. Cas scrambles to keep a grip on this place. To stay with Dean, but something, he’s not sure what, is pulling him away from Dean._

_No matter how much he wants to reach him. He can’t._

_. . ._

“He’s…shit,” the voice is familiar but Cas can’t quite place it. “Doc, Doc get over here. I can’t believe it.”

Cas blinks. His head is pounding and everything is blurry, but he can make out the shapes around him. He’s lying on a hospital bed. There are IVs in both his arms and he’s numb from somewhere just below his ribs down.

“You’re alive,” Doc says. Doc, yes, he remembers her. Doc. Her hand touches his forehead. “I can’t believe. You made it.”

Somehow Cas is coherent enough to choke out the words, “My baby. M-my baby” as he remembers exactly where he is, exactly the state of his life.

“I’m sorry, Cas,” Doc says.

Cas freezes. He’s numb and confused, and sick…he’s gonna be sick. He knew this was the most likely outcome. He just figured he wouldn’t be here to see it. That he’d be leaving Benny behind to grieve them both alone.

A medic slides up behind Doc, holding a bundle of white blankets in her arms. Cas isn’t certain he wants to see.

“Sorry,” Doc continues. “We were wrong. You had a boy.”

Cas’s mouth drops open, relief unlike anything he’s ever known rushes over him. The medic walks over and passes Cas the bundle, his baby, his son. The first human born living in years. Joy doesn’t even begin to explain what he feels, even after everything, even surrounded by people he’s often seen as his enemy. In this moment, they’re not. They’re just all her. Together.

Nobody will blame Cas when he cries because everyone else in the room is crying too.

. . .

“His heart’s been stopped too long,” Lillith says. “It’s not going to restart, and even if it does, it’ll be beyond a miracle if he doesn’t have some sort of brain damage.”

Azazel stares down at Dean, his body sewn and stitched in strange places. His chest is no longer rising and falling. The heart monitor has flat lined.

“Keep trying,” Azazel spits. “I’m not done with him yet.”


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was probably a bit of a liar about how many chapters are left, there may be a few more. My fic schedule, like I said, has gotten really messed up and I can't always post when I wish I could, but just to try and get things back on some sort of track - this fic will likely update on Thursdays now and my other main fic (The Kinks) if you're reading it, will update on Mondays. This probably won't always happen, but it is my goal.
> 
> Sorry, onto the fic!

_Three Months Later_

Last night was the first night Cas has got to sleep through since having the baby. Though, apparently, sleeping through the night only means five hours. Still, it was a nice five hours.

After James was born, it seemed that Doc wasn’t quite sure what to do with this new strange family. Cas isn’t quite sure what happened, only that it seems Doc is having a bit more trouble seeing the alphas and omegas as entirely inhuman. Also, maybe the thought of making a baby sleep in a zoo exhibit just doesn’t quite appeal to her either.

So when Cas and James had left the medical sector, Doc directed them to an actual room. Two rooms, really. Cas can only imagine that it had once been an office for some higher-ranking official when this was a zoo. There was a queen-sized bed with soft looking linens in the center of the room. But probably the strangest change though was the closet in the room. Cas remembers Benny sliding it open and his mouth sort of dropping.

“Cas, come over here,” Benny said.

The baby cradled in his arms, Cas met Benny by the closet. He could hardly believe what he saw. It was filled with clothes for Benny and Cas. Shirts, jeans, underwear. Mesmerized, Cas ran his hands over it at all. The other, smaller room had a dresser of clothes for James, plus a crib with a mobile, a bassinet, a changing table, a shelf full of books and stuffed animals.

Three months ago, it seemed surreal. Now, Cas thinks, it almost seems normal.

(Wait, Cas takes it all back, the absolute best part of the new room: it has an actual bathroom, with an actual toilet, sink and shower.)

Cas rolls over in his bed, breathing into his pillow. James is cooing softly in the other room, clearly awake. Cas starts moving to get out of bed when Benny gently touches his shoulder.

“Keep sleeping. I’ll do it,” Benny whispers.

Cas nods and nestles further into the sheets. There’s been a nice domesticity to it all – and Cas tries not to think about what that’s cost him. He’s been exhausted and bleeding, which they have to drain out of him most days since, unlike a woman, it has no where to exit his body, and he’s been up most nights feeding James. Since Cas is a male omega, he doesn’t produce milk. Therefore, they’ve been feeding James a special formula that’s some sort of concoction between human formula and some extra alpha/omega stuff. Doc created it, and he seems to be happy and full on it. At least, bottle-feeding meant Benny could help, but Cas found himself awake anyway.

Regardless, most of Cas’s attention in these past few months has been on James and on physically recovering. The stitches on his abdomen still hurt most days. He touches them absentmindedly as he sits up in bed.

Unfortunately, Cas hasn’t had much time to think about the Dean situation and figure out how to get him back or at least figure out where he went and why. It’s time to start looking again, and now, at least, Cas has a closer relationship with Doc and more access to the place. Cas is sliding out of bed when he’s suddenly hit with a dizzy spell. He hasn’t been feeling spectacular the last couple of days, but he’s felt kind of awful since giving birth. He hadn’t thought much about it, but now Cas feels hot all over and it’s been so long that he doesn’t realize what it is until Benny walks in the room and stops, body tensing and subconsciously, he sniffs the air.

“Shit, baby,” Benny says.

“What?” Cas replies, feeling hot and itchy.

“ _Cas.”_ Benny growls.

Cas gasps when he feels slick pour out of him. “I think I’m in heat.”

Benny licks his lips. “You definitely are.”

“What do we do?”

“I’m pretty sure you know how to-“

Cas rolls his eyes. “I mean with James, Benny. And, I’m not sure if I can have sex.”

“If your heat has returned you probably…”

“We should tell Doc.”

Benny nods. “Yes, let’s go.”

Cas gets dressed, trying to ignore the burning sensation all over his body. He’s gotten so much better at dealing with heats than he was the first time. Still, it isn’t easy. Because his brain just keeps repeating _knot, knot, need, Benny, need, Dean_ and isn’t that just fantastic?

All three of them head down to Doc’s office. Cas knocks on the door.

“Come in,” Doc says.

Cas opens the door and steps into her office. Benny walks in right behind him.

Doc looks up from the tablet on her desk. It’s still strange to see old electronics in use here. “What’s up?”

“I’m in heat.”

“Oh _oh._ ” She stands up from her desk. “We can watch James for you until your heat ends.”

“Doc?” Cas asks quietly.

“What is it?”

“Could I get pregnant again from this?”

“If you’re having heats again, it means you’ll be able to conceive again.” She smiles. “Let’s hope so.”

Cas’s stomach sinks, but immediately his stupid omega instincts take over and he thinks _yes, breed, alpha, breed me_ and he hates himself a little bit for that.

“Oh,” Cas says, “Okay.”

“It’s probably best if James stays in your room, so not to disturb him much. You two can return to your original enclosure until your heat is over.”

“Yes, Doc.”

Doc puts out her arms and Benny hands James to her. For a moment, Cas feels the distinct urge to rip Doc’s throat out, but he squashes it down. Doc won’t hurt James. James is the most important person in the world to her. He’s her entire life’s work.

Doc walks out of her office, holding James. Benny follows her out and Cas is right behind him, but he sees something on a small table by the door. It’s a stack of papers. A yellow note sticks out from underneath a blue one and he sees just a few letters: SAM, but he knows the handwriting immediately. It’s Dean’s. As quick as he can, Cas snatches up the note and shoves it in his pocket.

Cas knows he’s got a heat to deal with, but right now the only thing he cares about is what that note in his pocket says.

. . .

Dean wakes up screaming.

He knows exactly what he’s been imagining, or experiencing, Dean isn’t quite sure which. But he knows it involves Azazel and sex with Azazel and life that can’t actually really be real because that kind of world is gone. There’s only disease and famine and desolation.

His throat is dry and his vision is so blurry. He’s never needed glasses, but suddenly he can hardly see anything.

“Azazel!” Dean screams and thrashes against the restraints that hold him down. The movement pulls on the IV stuck in his arm and stings. “What the fuck did you to me?”

He screams and screams, but nobody comes even when his voice is hoarse and his throat is raw. It’s only when he’s given up, when tears are streaming down his face that a blurry figure walks toward him. Suddenly, rough fingers are caressing his face.

“Dean Winchester,” it’s Azazel’s voice. He recognizes it immediately. “White knight hero, destroyer of demons is, now, about to become one. Poetic, isn’t it?”

“What?” Dean growls, fighting against the restraints, fighting against everything, that’s happening, but nothing helps. Nothing will free him.

He feels Azazel step away from him, and, somehow, that seems more dangerous.

“What was the point of it?” Dean bites out because he needs to know. “Why the sick little domestic fantasy?”

“Making you imagine all that, making you see yourself like that, riding me, bending over for me, like a good little omega. You’ll always have those memories, always remember how a demon felt inside you. When all this is over, Dean, you’ll remember everything you did. You'll remember everyone you kill. You'll remember how it felt when you broke their bones. And you'll remember what that omega of yours...what's his name? Castiel. You'll remember how his screams sounded when you tore his heart out while he begged you to stop.

Dean nearly roars, fear and anger raging inside him, but something just stops him.

Scorching heat burns through his veins and he goes dead still as he feels separated from his own body. Dean’s not sure what’s happening, but he feels himself being pushed down further and further until it’s like he’s trapped in his own head and everything that surrounds him is rage and violence. Until he is a beast.


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know there's like a lot of dub-con and non-con in this, but I want to warn for just sort a dub-con-ish exchange between Benny and Cas. It's kind of messed up, really this whole fic is though. Hope it's not too bad.

Ever since Cas found that note in Doc’s office, things have been different – Cas has been different. He keeps it with him at all times. He hasn’t even told Benny about it because he’s not sure how to. Not sure if he’s ready to let somebody in on this. It’s wrong maybe, but Benny’s given up on Dean and Cas hasn’t.

He really hasn’t now.

Benny’s in the other room feeding James so Cas retreats to the corner of the room and pulls the note out. He unfold it and reads in in the dim light.

_Dear Sam,_

_I left because I wanted to help you. I wanted to help everyone. Now I see that I didn’t do anything to help anyone. After the war ended, I was lost. After Jo died because of me…after Dad. Shit, Sammy. I wanted you to have the best life you could have in a world like this. This place it was supposed to pay you and Bobby. I’m not sure if that ever happened. I’m not sure what was a lie and what wasn’t.  
_

_The thing is – I’m not exactly me anymore. I’m not exactly sure what I am, but I needed you to know that I’m sorry I won’t be coming back. I’ve had to make another tough decision that’s going to hurt people, one particular person especially, that I love. It seems like the only way to keep him safe, to keep him alive, I imagine at the cost of my own life. It doesn’t matter now though, but Doc, you don’t know Doc, but anyway – she promised she’d get this message to you. I hope she does. I hope you can forgive me._

_See you on the other side brother,_

_Dean_

_P.S. I need you to know, Sammy. Not all the demons are dead._

When Benny came out of the back room, Cas reacts as he had the last day and a half and tries to shove the note into his pocket. He pauses just short of hiding it and glances up at his alpha.

“Benny, I need to tell you something.” Cas’s heart drops; he’s not sure he’s ready to hand over this private piece of information. But, that’s silly, because Dean had never meant the note for his eyes, but for Dean’s brother.

“What is it?” His voice is low and concerned. Cas fights the urge to look down, to submit. Now that his heats were back, those omega hormones were flooding back to him.

“I found this. In Doc’s office. I-I took it.” Cas holds out the note.

Benny strides forward and snatches the small paper from Cas’s hands. “You took something from Doc’s office? Cas, what were you thinking?”

“Just read the note.”

Benny eyes Cas skeptically, but he brings the note closer to his face to read the words. It takes a few moments, but then Benny looks up at Cas, frowning.

“So, it’s a letter from Dean to his brother. So what?”

Cas stumbles back a bit, in total shock. This was not at all the reaction he expected from Benny. He expected anger for Cas not telling him earlier. He expected excitement at knowing that Dean left for a reason, that he left to help – however, misguided it probably was. But mostly, Cas expected worry and fear to cross Benny’s face. His mate had basically gone off to die. In a million years, Cas never expected Benny to look back at him like that, neutral and indifferent.

“So what?” Cas spat. “So now we know Dean didn’t just leave because he wanted to? We also know that he’s, in fact, in danger?”

Benny just shakes his head. “This note, Cas. It wasn’t for you or for me. Dean wasn’t concerned about how we felt about this. He didn’t come to us – he didn’t ask us for help. He didn’t let us know what was goin’ on. He abandoned us and the only person he cared to tell about it was his brother.”

Cas stands there in silence. He isn’t quite sure what he’s feeling. His head is spinning, though, and he kind of wants to punch something. “So, you’re not going to help me?”

“Help you do what, baby?”

“Save Dean. Save your mate.”

Benny steps forward. His face is red and he looks angry. Cas hasn’t been afraid of Benny in a long time, but a pang of fear jolts through him. “What about James? We have a son to be concerned about. We can’t go chasing some note.”

“It’s not just the note, Benny. There were clues before that. You know I kept searching for him as long as I could. And I think I’ve figured it out-“

“You haven’t figured anything out.”

Cas just ignores him and keeps talking, “Listen, Benny. Just listen to me for one damn second. He disappeared not long after he found out that no one omega had survived giving birth. Dean goes and suddenly Doc gets more medics, all this new equipment. Dean’s not just anybody. He’s a Winchester. Like one of _the_ Winchesters from the war. He’s likely valuable to someone. The note says-“

“I don’t give a fuck what the note says.”

“How do you not care?”

“Because he broke my heart too many times, Cas. Too many goddamn times and something just, I don’t know, something broke inside me too.”

Cas looks down, blood rushing from his head. The heat of anger lowering. “Benny, I-“

“You. You and James are my family now. I don’t know why Dean left. I don’t know if he left to protect you and somehow get Doc what she needed to make sure you and James survived. Maybe that’s exactly what he did. Maybe he’s alive somewhere, maybe he’s dead, who knows? All I know for certain is that Dean _didn’t_ tell us. He _didn’t_ say goodbye. He made our decision for us.”

Cas voice stays quiet, suddenly remembering James asleep for his nap in the other room. “I know what that’s like Benny. When I found out I was pregnant, I didn’t tell Dean the truth about why I couldn’t go with him because I knew the decision he would make. I knew he’d stay, and _because_ I love him, I lied to him.”

“That’s a load of bullshit, Cas, and you know it. Loving someone doesn’t mean making choices for them. You don’t get to decide what’s the best choice for someone. You don’t get to decide what they want or what they should do or what they should value.”

“If you know better…”

Benny’s eyes narrow, focus in on Cas. “You’re gonna get yourself killed. You’re stealing stuff from Doc. You’re lying to me. You’re planning dangerous things that put our baby in danger. You’re out of fucking control, and you need to remember what you’re place is.”

Cas swallows. His heart pounds. “Benny…”

“Alpha.”

“What?”

Benny reaches forward and thumbs at Cas’s collar. “Present.”

Cas’s stomach drops. This can’t be happening. They do not have this relationship anymore. Benny hasn’t asked Cas to present since before he got pregnant, and he doesn’t call him alpha. Not ever anymore. “You can’t be serious.”

“Bend over the bed.” Benny’s voice is so gentle it scares Cas, yet there’s an edge to it, an alpha edge, that Cas itches to obey. Benny never uses this voice on Cas – ever.

“You can’t just- we’re in the middle of an argument.”

“That was my mistake, wasn’t it? Letting you argue with me? Giving you so much leeway? You’re an omega. You need direction.” He strokes a hand through Cas’s hair. “Guidance from your alpha.”

Cas keeps shaking his head. He doesn’t understand what’s happening.

“Cas, you’re gonna take my knot now. This isn’t up for debate.”

Shaking, Cas makes his way over to the bed. He’s wearing clothes, but imagines Benny will take care of that for him. Cas starts to let himself retreat back into that place. That headspace he was in when he first met Dean. When he didn’t talk, when he played with balls and rolled around in the grass and shoved his humanity so deeply inside himself, he nearly forgot all about it. Benny is his alpha and if Benny wants Cas to present, then that’s what Cas should do.

He starts to lay himself out on the bed, to lift his ass in the air like the good little omega he’s supposed to be, when Dean’s face flickers into his head. His smile, his laugh, his kiss. Dean taught him to be human again and Cas will not just roll over for Benny, he will not just give all that up.

“No,” Cas says, turning around and standing up.

Benny doesn’t look like he’s going to attack Cas or try to force him. He doesn’t look angry at all. He’s just frowning a bit. “I’m your alpha, Cas. I know what’s best for you.”

“No, you don’t,” Cas snaps.

Again, Benny doesn’t seem bothered at all. He pauses and then says quietly, ”No, I don’t.”

Cas furrows his brow, trying to catch up with what is going on. Then it hits him. “Oh.” Benny was never actually going to knot him. Never going to force Cas when he didn’t want to. “That’s a shitty way to make a point.”

“Look, I know I just-“

“I get it, Benny. You’re right. It was wrong for Dean to leave without telling us, without asking us if it’s what we wanted. It was wrong for me to lie to Dean when I was pregnant. I understand why you have to let Dean go. I do. The thing is Benny, I can’t let him go. I have to find him. I have to save him. That’s my choice.”

“I know.” Benny half-smiles. “So go save him.”

 


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We really are getting near-ish the end, even though I've lied to you so many times about the amount of chapters left. (okay maybe I only lied once but still). We are really getting there. So prepare yourselves ;) Thanks for reading and being generally awesome.

Everything around Dean is black, red and blurry. It all melts like butter in a hot skillet and he can hardly hold onto any of it. He just knows it burns like fire in his veins, like a horrible painful itch that can only be scratched one way.

So he scratches it. No matter the consequence.

Dean’s not sure exactly where he is. He occasionally can see the faces of the people as their skin is torn away. He can’t exactly tell what’s hurting them, not intellectually at least. But he knows the taste of blood as it floods his mouth like thick wine. He knows the warmth of that hot and sticky blood on his fingers, neck and lips. He knows what people sound like before they die. Knows the high-pitched shrill of their screams and that little broken hitch that signifies the last breath they will ever take.

Once they take that breath, his painful itch subsides, and he hears another voice, low and cold, but a voice that commands and guides him with such ease it might as well be a leash. “Good boy. Good boy.”

He doesn’t feel good, not at all, but he feels sated, full. Like he had been starving but now he’d had plenty to eat. A whole feast. Dean has scratched the itch and, for a moment, it doesn’t hurt anymore, doesn’t burn. It isn’t a moment or a feeling that can last though, but Dean will sleep and rest in the blurry space between.

It’s not quite peace, but it’s like he’s looking through the window at peace. Like he can see a field of grass in the distance. He can’t quite feel the wind or smell the cool air, though he knows it’s cool somehow. There’s also a voice, familiar tone and pitch, but it speaks no words that make sense. All Dean knows is that he’s been to his place before and maybe, just maybe, someday he’ll get to go back. Get to hear what that voice really has to say.

When he wakes up again, the burning is back full force. It’s like being on fire, he thinks, like being in the pits of hell. Dean thinks vaguely of his heat, of how this is somewhat but with much more intensity and much more pain. It’s as undeniable that’s for certain. So when that awful tide swells up inside him, crests until it has now choice but to break, those cold hands unclasp the warm metal as he wrists and ankles and set him free.

Dean tastes that blood again. It’s hot, metallic, terrible. He hates it, but he needs it. Dean hears those screams, those hitched sounds. They echo like he’s trapped in a chamber and the sound waves keep bouncing and bouncing around without ever getting quieter.

This - It’s what he was made to do, what he has to do now.

Kill, kill, kill, kill.

. . .

Cas can’t believe he made it outside the compound. It’s strange to see the orange-red sky again, strange to breathe the sulfur in the air. He still has no idea how they managed to keep that zoo so pristine despite its mangled surroundings.

His heart ached for leaving Benny and James behind, but Dean needed him. He’d do anything for Dean. And now Cas had in his pocket coordinates to Dean’s last known location.

How he’d gotten those numbers is an interesting story. It involved blackmail, theft, violence and general deception. If Cas ever stepped foot in the place again, if Raphael ever saw Cas again, Raphael would be the last thing Cas ever saw. He wasn’t stupid. Cas only hopes that maybe, just maybe, Doc won’t come after him. That she’ll be too busy worrying about whatever Raphael has been up to, which Cas still doesn’t fully understand, to come after him.

Cas stole one of the canvas medical equipment bags. It’s slung over his shoulder and contains a few days worth of food and water. He hopes it will be enough to tide him over until he can find some more. So far, he’s walked probably 5 miles east, and he’s seen nothing but barren lands and fallen trees. He’s yet to hear the whistle of a bird, the flutter of a rabbit in the bushes. He hasn’t seen one person. Not one. As he keeps walking, the sick feeling in his stomach grows and grows and grows. What if things have changed even more…what if there is truly nothing left.

It’s so hot outside all Cas feel is the sun burning down on his and the cool sweat dripping down his neck and down his forehead into his eyes. He keeps taking sips of the water he collected in the grey containers, but he’s trying to ration the liquid because he honestly has no idea when or if he’ll come across a clean source of water.

He doesn’t know exactly where the coordinates he has lead, but he knows enough about geography to know he needs to head to Kansas. However, he’s not sure where he even is at the moment. For all he knows, and this thought is terrifying, Cas could not even be in North America anymore. He somehow feels like he is, but he could _not_ be, which would be terrible. Stowing away on a train or bartering his way onto a supply truck would be difficult enough, finding passage either by plane or by boat would be nearly impossible.

He’s still walking when the sun goes down. Cas has no choice but to curl up in a patch of dirt near one of the few trees that remain standing. Cas wants to keep walking, to get closer and closer to Dean, but he can hardly feel his legs and it’s just too dark to keep moving. It’s easy to fall asleep on the ground. He has slept this way so many times. It’s as comfortable as a bed to him now, he thinks. It’s a strange thought.

. . .

Dean knows he’s being moved. He’s aware enough to know that. He knows that after he finishes whatever he’s been sent to finish. After the itch fades, the pain stops and he can finally breathe again, he feels himself being chained up again. He doesn’t resist though he knows he’s being caged, locked away.

He can’t see much. It’s all too blurry and out of focus. Some distant thought in his head he can’t really grab onto says _Am I getting that old? Do I need glasses now or something?_ It’s not a thought that makes too much sense and he’s not even sure if it’s his thought at all so he lets it slip away.

He can feel it moving underneath him. A car maybe? Could be a train? Doesn’t matter, though it’s moving him somewhere else. To another place where he can scratch the itch.

Dean thinks there is a window because he sees images blurring by him. Scorched trees, towers of smoke, flat terrain. He tries to focus on it because it seems like it’s been so long since he’s really _seen_ something. Seen all it’s lines and edges in a way that means something. So he just keeps looking, and for a flash he sees the a crooked blue metal sign. It’s scratched and faded. He can make what the symbols look like but he can’t decipher their meaning. He thinks they’re important though. Maybe.

_Leaving Kansas Come Again._

. . .

The next morning Cas gets up. He keeps walking until finally he comes across a cracked asphalt road. He walks down it. The air already much too dry and hot; still Cas struggles on. He goes and goes and goes until he sees a sign and he can hardly believe it.

A faded, cracked, crooked blue sign that reads.

_Welcome to Kansas_


End file.
